THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 

Gladys  Wickson 

Ida  Wickson  Thomas 

Ednah  Wickson  Kelly 


A 


RENAISSANCE    MASTERS 


THE  ART  OF  RAPHAEL,  MICHELANGELO 

LEONARDO    DA    VINCI,    TITIAN 

CORREGGIO,  BOTTICELLI  AND 

RUBENS 


BY 
GEORGE  B.  ROSE 


THIRD  EDITION 

To  WHICH  is  ADDED  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ART  OP 
CLAUDE  LORRAINE 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  &  LONDON 

Gbe  Knickerbocker  {press 

1908 


COPYRIGHT,  1898 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  London 

COPYRIGHT,  1908 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S   SONS 
(For  new  material) 


Ubc  Knickerbocker  f>ree0,  View  fiorb 


GIFT 


A/6370 

Tfr 

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DEDICATED 

TO 
MY  WIFE 

WHOSE   INTELLIGENT    SYMPATHY    WITH   MY    STUDY 
OF   RENAISSANCE   ART    HAS    BEEN    A 
GREAT   ENCOURAGEMENT 


921 


PREFACE 

IT  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  book  to  endeavor 
to  assist  the  successors  of  Morelli  in  deter- 
mining the  authenticity  of  pictures.  It  accepts 
the  results  of  the  latest  criticism,  and  is  based 
on  a  loving  study  of  works  whose  genuineness 
is  established  by  the  weight  of  authority. 

Its  design  is  to  give  in  a  brief  compass  an 
insight  into  the  essential  characteristics  of  each 
of  the  masters  treated,  so  that  the  traveller 
may  be  able  to  enjoy  them  for  what  they  are, 
without  looking  for  merits  in  one  which  can 
be  found  only  in  another.  Even  the  greatest 
have  their  limitations,  and  these  as  well  as 
their  qualities  must  be  understood  to  derive 
the  fullest  pleasure  and  profit  from  the  con- 
templation of  their  achievements. 

General  students  should  form  their  concep- 
tion of  an  artist  from  his  acknowledged  master- 


VI  PREFACE 

pieces,  which  give  the  measure  of  his  powers. 
I  have  therefore  rarely  considered  doubtful  or 
inferior  productions,  and  have  added  no  lists  of 
the  master's  works.  Many  such  lists  exist 
already,  and  no  two  of  them  agree.  I  should, 
however,  particularly  recommend  those  ap- 
pended to  Mr.  Bernhard  Berenson's  invalu- 
able little  books  on  the  Painters  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance.  The  extraordinary  penetration 
displayed  in  the  body  of  the  text  qualifies  the 
author  in  an  unusual  degree  to  pass  on  ques- 
tions of  authenticity. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


INTRODUCTION i 

RAPHAEL 18 

MICHELANGELO       42 

LEONARDO  DA  VINCI    \        .        .        .71 

TITIAN 104 

CORREGGIO 131 

BOTTICELLI 159 

RUBENS 180 

CLAUDE  LORRAINE         .       .       .       .211 
INDEX 239 


vii 


RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 


INTRODUCTION 

THERE  are  two  periods  in  the  history  of 
the  world's  art  that  are  of  supreme  in- 
terest, the  age  of  Pericles  and  the  Italian 
Renaissance.  But  they  are  widely  different  in 
their  character.  The  age  of  Pericles  was  the 
culmination  of  a  long  and  harmonious  develop- 
ment, the  glorious  blossoming  of  a  perfect 
flower,  which  had  grown  in  symmetrical  grace 
to  bloom  in  ideal  beauty. 

Not  so  with  the  Renaissance.  No  period  of 
humanity  has  been  torn  with  more  conflicting 
ideas,  with  more  diverse  aspirations,  with  more 
opposing  passions.  Greek  literature  and  Greek 
art  had  come  again  to  light,  and  the  hearts  of 
many,  carried  away  by  the  loveliness  of  this 
I 


2  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

world,  longed  to  return  to  the  bright  days  of 
old  when  beauty  was  all  in  all,  and  men  gath- 
ered to  watch  the  naked  runners  at  Olympia 
straining  their  forms  of  matchless  grace  and 
power,  or  stood  upon  the  shore  of  the  Athen- 
ian gulf  to  look  at  Phryne  as  she  rose  as 
Aphrodite  from  the  purple  sea.  But  in  other 
breasts  the  religious  fervor  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  the  hatred  of  the  pomp  and  glory  of 
the  earth,  glowed  as  warmly  as  in  the  bosom 
of  Peter  the  Hermit  when  he  aroused  Europe 
to  throw  itself  upon  Asia  in  the  hope  of  re- 
covering the  Holy  Sepulchre.  What  made 
the  conflict  so  intense  and  so  peculiar  was  that 
the  new  spirit  did  not  come  as  a  distinct  faith 
against  which  the  forces  of  conservatism  could 
be  clearly  drawn.  The  lovers  of  antique  art 
did  not  cease  to  be  Christians,  they  were  not 
even  heretics,  so  that  they  could  not  be  burned 
at  the  stake  and  an  end  made  of  the  matter,  as 
Simon  de  Montfort  had  wiped  out  in  blood  the 
brilliant  civilization  of  Provence  when  a  holy 
war  had  been  proclaimed  against  the  trouba- 
dours because  they  sang  too  sweetly  of  woman's 
love  and  of  earthly  beauty.  The  spirit  of  the 


INTRODUCTION  3 

Renaissance  penetrated  into  every  heart,  and 
the  conflict  went  on  in  the  bosom  of  every 
man.  For  long  centuries  men  had  bowed  be- 
neath the  yoke  of  an  ascetic  discipline  imposed 
by  a  religious  fervor  that  had  blinded  them  to 
the  loveliness  of  nature,  and  had  regarded  the 
fair  earth  as  a  hideous  dungeon  haunted  by 
evil  spirits,  the  body  as  an  unclean  tenement 
of  clay  that  imprisoned  the  soul  and  dragged 
it  down  to  sin.  Slowly  their  eyes  wereX 
opened.  They  looked  upon  the  world,  and 
they  saw  that  though  defaced  by  the  ravages 
of  man  and  stained  by  his  crimes,  it  was  still 
fair  and  good,  and  in  thier  breasts  there  grew 
up,  although  they  struggled  against  it,  the  old 
pagan  love  for  the  beauty  of  external  things, 
for  the  purple  sea  breaking  forever  on  the 
silver  sands,  for  the  sunlight's  brilliance  as  it 
fell  upon  fields  of  golden  grain  and  hills  clothed 
in  verdure;  above  all,  for  the  beauty  of  the*^ 
human  countenance,  for  the  grace  of  the  human 
form.  But  these  feelings  were  not  simple  and 
unmixed  as  in  the  bosom  of  a  Greek.  In 
every  breast  there  were  also  the  spiritual  aspira- 
tions, the  hatred  of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and 


4  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

the  devil  that  characterized  the  Middle  Age. 
These  inconsistent  elements  waged  an  incessant 
war.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  Fra  Angel- 
ico,  the  spiritual  side  had  almost  the  entire 
victory ;  sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  Titian, 
the  new  paganism  almost  uprooted  the  Chris- 
tian spirit;  and  sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of 
Raphael,  they  were  blended  together  in  har- 
monious union. 

AVhen  the  Renaissance  began  we  cannot  tell. 
Far  back  in  the  Dark  Ages  we  can  see  the 
spirit  stirring,  now  manifesting  itself  here,  now 
there,  but  always  sternly  repressed  by  the 
bigotry  of  the  time.  But  when  at  length  the 
human  intellect  broke  its  fetters,  its  advance 
was  extremely  rapid.  Petrarch  was  already 
seventeen  years  of  age  when  Dante  died,  yet, 
while  the  spirit  of  Dante  is  almost  entirely 
mediaeval,  the  spirit  of  Petrarch  is  almost  en- 
tirely classic.  Still,  as  showing  how  the  two 
spirits  were  intermingled,  the  very  groundwork 
of  Petrarch's  poetry  is  of  the  Middle  Age. 
One  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Middle  Age 
was  its  constant  yearning  for  the  unattainable. 
That  which  was  within  reach  was  without 


INTRODUCTION  5 

value:  that  which  was  beyond  the  grasp  was 
longed  for  with  infinite  desire.  Men  cared 
little  for  their  own  wives  or  for  any  whom  they 
could  win.  Every  knight  chose  some  lady  in 
whose  honor  he  might  achieve  his  feats  of 
arms,  every  minnesinger  or  troubadour  chose 
one  to  whom  to  address  his  songs  of  love  and 
war ;  but  it  was  always  some  one  beyond  their 
reach,  either  because  she  was  the  wife  of 
another  or  because  of  her  exalted  rank.  It 
was  this  purely  spiritual  love  alone  that  found 
poetic  expression  ;  and  there  was  so  little 
reality  in  it,  it  was  so  entirely  a  matter  of  the 
imagination,  that  the  real  objects  of  human 
love  cared  little  about  it.  His  visionary  pas- 
sion for  Beatrice  did  not  prevent  Dante  from 
marrying  and  having  ten  children,  and  his 
good  wife,  Gemma,  no  doubt  valued  the  poet's 
devotion  to  his  shadow  at  its  true  worth. 
Had  Beatrice  come  to  Dante  or  Laura  to  Pe- 
trarch the  poets  would  have  wept  over  their 
shattered  dream,  and  have  chosen  some  other 
woman  as  the  object  of  their  adoration.  This 
visionary  love,  which  it  is  so  hard  for  us  now  to 
realize,  was  the  natural  result  of  the  absorption 


6  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

of  the  Middle  Age  in  the  things  of  the  spirit 
and  its  abhorrence  of  the  things  of  the  flesh.* 
/Though  the  Renaissance  owed  its  awakening 
to  the  re-discovery  of  antiquity,  there  is  a  vast 
gulf  between  the  art  of  Greece  and  that  of 
Italy.  In  ancient  art  it  was  the  type  that  was 
sought,  each  artist  striving  to  produce  the  ideal 
of  perfect  beauty,  free  from  the  imperfections 
of  any  individual  man  or  woman.  With  the 
soul,  Greek  art  has  little  to  do.  The  expression 
upon  the  faces  is  usually  one  of  Olympian 
serenity  alone,  and  if  human  passions  are  por- 
trayed, as  in  the  "  Laocoon,"  it  is  only  in 
their  simplest  form. 

Far  different  was  the  Renaissance.  Chris- 
tianity and  the  Middle  Ages  had  swept  across 
men's  lives,  and  they  had  learned  to  turn  their 
glance  inward,  probing  the  soul's  most  hidden 
mysteries.  Instead  of  faces  which  merely  ex- 
press the  joy  of  living  in  a  joyous  world,  in  a 
world  still  bright  with  the  freshness  of  its 
glorious  youth,  we  have  countenances  in  which 

*  Perhaps  the  best  illustration  of  this  peculiar  kind  of  love 
is  the  Florentine  poet  Sacchetti,  who  married  three  successive 
wives,  and  in  the  meantime  addressed  all  his  poems  to  a  fourth 
woman. 


IN  TROD  UC  TION  *J 

are  depicted  all  the  passions  of  humanity,  its 
most  secret  instincts,  its  vaguest  aspirations. 
It  is  no  longer  the  type  that  is  sought,  it  is  theN 
individual.  Instead  of  trying  to  eliminate  from 
the  work  of  art  all  that  is  personal  to  the 
model,  leaving  only  the  abstraction  of  ideal 
beauty,  the  effort  is  to  represent  the  individual 
person,  the  individual  soul.  Instead  of  en- 
deavoring to  produce  from  many  imperfections 
a  single  perfect  type,  they  strive  to  show  how 
body  differs  from  body,  spirit  from  spirit. 
Leonardo  da  Vinci  would  follow  all  day  long 
one  whose  countenance  struck  him  as  they 
passed  upon  the  street,  striving  to  penetrate 
the  secret  of  personality,  and  to  fix  upon  his 
sketch-book  the  charm  of  feature  or  expression 
with  which  he  had  been  impressed — trying  to 
seize  those  very  elements  of  being  that  Apelles 
would  have  been  most  anxious  to  exclude. 

Therefore,  while  the  purpose  of  Greek  art 
was  the  attainment  of  abstract  perfection,  the\ 
purpose  of  Renaissance  art  was  the  expression 
of  the  individual  countenance  and  form.  In 
this  respect  nearly  all  modern  art  has  followed 
the  guidance  of  the  Renaissance,  not  of  an- 


8  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

tiquity.  We  admire  ancient  art,  but  its  calm 
grandeur  is  no  longer  possible  to  our  souls, 
torn  as  they  are  with  conflicting  feelings  un- 
dreamed of  by  a  Greek ;  and  when  we  try  to 
imitate  it  we  are  usually  merely  stiff  and 
academic.  But  the  people  of  the  Italian  Re 
naissance  are  our  true  ancestors.  Their  feel- 
ings were  the  same  as  ours,  only  more  intense; 
they  were  confronted  by  the  same  problems; 
their  art  deals  with  the  same  sentiments,  the 
same  aspirations;  and  in  the  study  of  their 
works  the  modern  artist  will  find  infinite  profit 
and  inspiration. 

The  result  of  this  seeking  after  individuality* 
is  that  Renaissance  art  is  far  more  varied  than 
that  of  classic  times.  In  Greece  every  artist 
was  striving  for  the  same  thing,  for  the  highest 
type  of  beauty  or  of  strength,  so  that  there  is 
a  certain  sameness  in  their  works.  Scopas  is 
more  vehement,  Praxiteles  more  voluptuous, 
but  they  are  in  search  of  the  same  ideals,  and 
even  among  the  ancients  their  works  were 
hopelessly  confused — a  thing  that  could  never 
happen  in  the  case  of  Michelangelo,  Raphael, 
Leonardo,  Correggio,  and  Titian. 


INTRODUCTION  9 

And  it  was  in  consequence  of  this  love  of 
individuality  that  painting  became  the  favorite 
art  of  the  Renaissance,  as  sculpture  was  the 
favorite  art  of  Greece.  Sculpture  is  best  suited 
to  the  creation  of  ideal  types,  painting  to  the 
depicting  of  individual  expression.  And  in 
the  hands  of  the  artists  of  the  Renaissance  the 
function  of  sculpture  is  completely  changed. 
Instead  of  plastic  forms  with  brows  on  which 
sits  the  serenity  of  Olympus,  the  body  is  useol 
as  a  vehicle  for  the  utterance  of  the  most  com- 
plex feelings;  and  often  the  artist  thinks  not 
of  its  beauty,  but  only  of  the  expressiveness  of 
the  tortured  limbs. 

And  this  striving  after  individuality  in  art  is 
but  an  expression  of  the  spirit  of  the  age.^/ 
There  are  times  in  the  world's  history  when 
the  individual  is  completely  absorbed  in  the 
mass  of  his  fellows ;  when  all  men  are  seeking 
a  single  ideal,  each  rejoicing  to  subordinate 
himself  to  the  spirit  that  animates  the  whole. 
Such  in  art  were  the  Middle  Ages,  when 
myriads  of  men  co-operated  in  the  erection  of 
those  marvellous  Gothic  cathedrals  which  are 
the  wonder  of  all  succeeding  generations,  and 


IO  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

yet  all  were  so  absorbed  in  their  work  that  we 
know  not  even  the  names  of  the  architects  from 
whose  astounding  brains  could  spring  the  con- 
ception of  these  vast  structures  with  their  in- 
finite complications  of  ornament  and  slender 
shafts  reaching  heavenward  their  stony  arms 
in  rapturous  prayer  to  the  throne  of  grace — 
men  who  cared  only  for  their  work,  and  who 
did  not  even  carve  their  names  upon  those 
pillars,  the  least  of  which  would  have  made 
them  immortal. 

There  are  other  times  that  are  periods  of 
disintegration,  when  the  bonds  that  bound 
men  together  are  loosened,  and  when  each 
strikes  out  for  himself,  or  combines  with  others 
only  for  purposes  of  temporary  advantage, 
moved  by  no  common  impulse,  but  each  seek- 
ing for  himself  pleasure,  power,  riches,  or  fame. 
Such  a  period  was  the  Peloponnesian  War, 
the  fall  of  the  Roman  Republic,  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance, the  Thirty  Years'  War,  the  French 
Revolution, — times  of  intense  personal  activ- 
ity, of  strong  individual  development,  when  the 
human  soul  breaks  its  fetters  and  revels  in  a 


IN  TR  OD  UC  TION  1 1 

freedom  that  too  often  leads  to  dissolution  and 
ruin.  These  are  not  the  most  wholesome 
periods  in  the  world's  records,  but  they  are  the 
periods  of  greatest  interest.  In  them  we  pass 
from  history  to  biography.  We  are  no  longer 
concerned  with  the  movement  of  vast  inert 
masses — we  are  fascinated  by  intense  person-^ 
alities,  each  of  which  differs  from  the  other, 
having  different  ideas,  different  aspirations, 
different  characteristics.  And  of  all  these 
periods  of  transition,  when  the  old  idols  are 
crumbling  and  thousands  of  new  ones  are 
clamoring  to  take  their  places,  when  the  old 
ties  of  association  have  been  broken  and  new 
ones  have  not  yet  been  established,  when  men 
are  free  to  pursue  the  bent  of  their  own  spirit 
without  constraint,  when  each  stands  distinct 
from  the  mass  of  humanity,  the  Italian  Re- 
naissance is  the  most  attractive.  It  was  a  time 
of  vehement  activity,  when  brain  and  nerves 
and  sinews  were  strained  to  the  utmost,  when 
each  strove  most  passionately  for  himself, 
freeing  himself  most  completely  from  his  fel- 
low-men,— a  time  of  intense  light  and  Cimme- 
rian darkness,  of  great  virtues  and  astounding  / 


12  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

crimes,  of  princes  like  the  Visconti,  of  whom 
it  was  said  that  their  hate  was  fratricide  and 
their  love  was  incest ;  of  popes  like  Sixtus  IV. 
and  Alexander  Borgia,  who  defiled  the  chair  of 
St.  Peter  with  orgies  that  would  have  shocked 
the  companions  of  Nero,  and  at  whose  poisoned 
banquets  Death  presided  as  master  of  the 
revels ;  of  saints  like  Fra  Angelico  and  Carlo 
Borromeo ;  of  murderous  Bacchantes  like  Lu- 
cretia  Borgia,  and  of  holy  matrons  like  Vittoria 
Colonna, — a  time  of  upheaval,  of  tumult,  of 
confusion,  when  a  mere  condottiere  like  Sforza, 
selling  his  sword  and  his  mercenaries  to  the 
highest  bidder,  could  become  a  sovereign, 
when  principalities  were  daily  changed  into 
republics  and  republics  into  principalities, 
when  the  ruler  of  to-day  was  the  exile  of  to- 
morrow, only  to  return  again  in  triumph  to 
exact  a  bloody  vengeance, — a  time  almost  of  J 
anarchy,  when  men  yet  loved  art  and  learning 
with  an  intensity  of  devotion  that  has  never 
since  been  equalled,  when  the  artist  quietly 
painted  his  altar-piece  or  his  Venus  rising  from 
the  sea,  or  the  scholar  drank  rapturously  at 
the  newly  discovered  fount  of  the  Grecian 


INTRODUCTION  13 

Muses  while  men  were   cutting   each   other's 
throats   outside   his   door, — a  time,  in   short, 
when  a  man  could  be  anything  if  he  only  had 
the  boldness,    the  cunning,    or  the  strength.^/ 
No  age  is  so  varied  in  its  interest^    Each  city 
has  its  different  architecture,  its  different  art, 
and  its  individual  history  full  of  the  storm  and 
stress   of   conflicting   passions.     The   very  air\ 
seemed  surcharged  with  electricity,  here  shin-    ' 
ing  as  a  splendid  beacon  giving  light  to  an 
admiring  world,  there  crashing  downward  as  a 
thunderbolt,  bearing  destruction  in  its  wake. 
In  this  atmosphere,  where  all  things  were  pos- 
sible for  good  or  evil,  life  was  intense,  passion- 
ate, voluptuous,  cruel,  as  it  has  rarely  been, 
and  yet  pervaded  everywhere  by  a  spirit  of 
humanistic  culture  strangely  at  variance  with 
the  brutal  ferocity  that  was  continually  break- 
ing forth.     The  art  of  such  an  age  must  neces-^ 
sarily  possess  a  peculiar  and  enduring  interestX 
/"There   is   nothing   more   striking   than   the 
sodden  ending  of  Renaissance  art)     Greek  art 
reached  the  zenith  in  the  age  of'Tericles,  but 
its  long  afternoon  was  almost  as  brilliant  as 
its  noonday  splendor.     But  when  the  sun  of 


14  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

Utalian  art  had  reached  its  meridian  it  was 
suddenly  eclipsed.  This  was  partly  due  to 
exhaustion,  but  was  principally  the  result  of 
political  causes.  \ 

\  While  all  this  brilliant  life  was  going  on  in 
Italy,  while  the  peninsula  was  divided  among 
a  number  of  petty  principalities  maintaining 
the  balance  of  power  as  carefully  as  the  Europe 
of  to-day,  each  the  centre  of  a  rich  artistic 
activity,  beyond  the  Alps,  in  those  countries 
of  the  North  and  West  of  which  the  Italians 
rarely  thought,  and  then  only  with  contempt 
as  a  region  of  barbarism  and  darkness,  forces 
were  at  work  of  which  they  scarcely  reckoned. 
Slowly  out  of  the  anarchy  and  turmoil  of  the 
Middle  Ages  two  great  kingdoms  were  emerg- 
ing, France  and  Spain — kingdoms  that  cared 
not  for  the  arts,  but  rejoiced  in  war  and  rapine, 
before  whose  vast  mail-clad  armies  the  Italian 
mercenaries  must  be  scattered  as  chaff  before 
the  wind.  They  rose  above  Italy  like  black 
and  angry  waves  ready  to  break  and  overwhelm 
the  land;  but  she  saw  not  the  danger,  and 
went  on  with  her  masques  and  her  revels,  her 
painting  and  her  sculpture,  heedless  of  the 


INTRODUCTION  15 

wrath  to  come.y  In  an  evil  hour  Ludovico  il 
Moro,  Duke  of  Milan,  invoked  the  assistance 
of  the  French.  This  brought  the  Spaniard 
also  into  the  peninsula,  and  from  that  time 
forth  havoc  and  desolation  reigned  supreme. 
Italy,  where  serious  war  had  been  for  centuriesN 
unknown,  became  the  battle-ground  of  Europe.^ 
The  steel-clad  knights  of  France,  the  iron  in- 
fantry of  Spain,  the  ruthless  reiters  of  Ger- 
many, who  dreamed  only  of  blood  and  gold, 
and  to  whose  rude  natures  art  could  make  no 
appeal,  marched  back  and  forth,  devastating 
the  land  and  trampling  upon  the  people  until 
in  the  wretchedness  of  slavery  they  lost  their 
genius  and  their  manhood,  and  became  as  in- 
capable of  artistic  production  as  Greece  when 
she  was  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  Roman 
province. 

Moreover,  Italy  had  returned  toward  classic 
times  until  it  had  become  almost  pagan,  while 
the  rest  of  Europe  was  still  imbued  with  the 
spirit  of  the  Middle  Age.  The  pilgrims  from 
the  North,  seeing  the  wealth,  the  luxury,  the 
immorality  of  Italian  life,  in  which  the  church 
took  the  lead,  were  shocked  beyond  measure; 


16  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

and  doubtless  to  the  rude  visitors  from  beyond 
the  Alps  many  pictures  which  are  now  the 
glory  of  the  world  gave  greater  offense  than 
the  murders  of  the  Borgias.  Germany  rose  in 
revolt,  and  Switzerland,  Holland,  Denmark, 
Norway,  Sweden,  and  England  threw  in  their 
lot  with  her.  Even  in  France  the  authority  of 
the  Pope  was  assailed.  In  this  hour  of  the 
church's  extreme  peril,  the  fierce  and  bigoted 
Spaniards  seized  the  helm,  and  fought  out  with 
measurable  success  the  long  battle  against  the 
forces  of  the  Protestant  revolt;  and  they 
trampled  the  bright  Italian  race  under  foot  as 
cruelly  as  they  had  done  the  people  of  Mexico 
and  Peru. 

Crushed  and  bleeding,  Italy  thought  no  more 
of  art,  and  under  the  tyranny  of  the  Spanish 
Inquisition,  she  sank  into  such  a  state  of  deg- 
radation that  not  only  was  she  unable  to  pro- 
duce works  worthy  of  her  past,  but  she  could 
not  even  appreciate  those  which  she  possessed, 
and  covered  many  of  them  with  hideous 
whitewash. 

So  perished  the  Italian  Renaissance,  but  as 
long  as  man  loves  the  beautiful  and  the  grand 


INTRODUCTION  \*J 

it  will  be  studied  with  a  loving  care  devoted  to 
no  other  epoch  of  modern  times.  It  has  been 
to  the  modern  world  what  Greece  was  to  the 
ancient, — the  glorious  beacon  at  which  the 
torches  of  civilization  have  been  lit. 


RAPHAEL 
(1483-1520) 

ENIUS  has  so  often  been  synonymous 
* — J  with  misfortune, — its  path  has  so  often 
led  in  despair  and  darkness  over  stones  and 
brambles  to  a  neglected  tomb, — Life  has  so 
often  pressed  down  upon  its  aching  brows  the 
crown  of  thorns,  leaving  Death  to  circle  them 
with  the  wreath  of  laurel,  that  it  is  with  peculiar 
pleasure  that  one  contemplates  Raphael's  un- 
varying felicity.  ^From  his  cradle  to  his  grave 
Fortune  smiled  upon  him,  and  the  approbation 
with  which  his  first  artistic  efforts  were  greeted 
increased  with  the  progress  of  his  years  until 
it  became  a  chorus  of  universal  praise^ 

Most  men  who  have  enjoyed  in  fullest  meas- 
ure the  admiration  of  their  contemporaries  are 
forgotten  by  posterity.  Their  popularity  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  they  voice  the  peculiar 

18 


RAPHAEL  19 

feelings  of  their  own  time,  and  when  those 
feelings  are  forgotten,  they,  too,  pass  into  ob- 
livion, leaving  the  throne  to  some  rival  who 
speaks  to  the  eternal  and  unchanging  heart  of 
man.  But  such  was  not  Raphael's  fate.  /In 
his  own  day  he  was  hailed  by  common  acclaim 
the  Prince  of  Painters,  and  if  a  faint  voice  has 
since  been  raised  here  and  there  to  contest  his 
pre-eminence,  it  has  been  drowned  in  the  general 
applause.  His  fame  has  grown  with  the  pas- 
sage of  the  centuries  until  it  is  co-extensive 
with  civilization,  and  his  name  is  pronounced 
with  reverence  in  every  land  and  on  every  sea. 
Nor  is  his  renown  confined  to  any  class/S  There 
are  painters,  like  Botticelli,  who  appeal  chiefly 
to  the  learned.  There  are  others,  like  Dore", 
whose  hold  is  only  upon  the  populace.  But 
Raphael  charms  both  alike.  (The  connoisseur 
understands  better  the  mystery  of  his  power, 
but  the  peasant  is  enthralled  with  the  beauty  of 
his  work.^  It  may  not  be  amiss  to  examine  the 
foundations  of  this  universal  and  enduring  fame. 
Our  modern  civilization  is  composed  of  two 
elements :  the  humanism,  the  love  of  beauty, 
of  harmony,  of  rhythm,  of  proportion,  of  the 


2O  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

sweetness  and  the  light  of  this  world  that  we 
have  borrowed  from  the  Greeks;  and  the 
spiritual  aspirations  that  we  have  inherited 
from  the  Hebrews.  These  forces  are  in  large 
measure  antagonistic.  We  all  remember  the 
Euphorion  of  Goethe,  the  beautiful  boy  born 
of  Faust  and  Helena,  the  perfect  being  sprung 
from  the  marriage  of  the  Middle  Age  and  An- 
tiquity, harmoniously  blending  in  a  single  per- 
son the  excellences  of  each.  Goethe  fancied 
that  he  saw  Euphorion  in  Lord  Byron,  but  he 
was  surely  mistaken,  for  Byron  is  totally  defi- 
cient in  that  unclouded  serenity  which  is  the 
crowning  perfection  of  Greek  culture. 

(There  has  been  but  one  Euphorion,  and  he 
was  Raphael}  In  him  alone  are  combined  the 
noblest  characteristics  of  the  classic  and  the 
mediaeval  spirits.}  In  him  alone  do  we  discover 
the  spiritual  fervor  of  the  Hebrew  so  chastened 
and  refined  that  it  mingles  in  harmonious  union 
with  the  rhythmic  beauty  of  Grecian  art.  (Tie 
is  the  crowning  glory  of  the  Renaissance.) 
Since  the  great  awakening  the  two  forces  had 
moved  on  side  by  side,  often  in  hostility, 
sometimes  blending  imperfectly.  To  Raphael 


RAPHAEL  21 

was  reserved  the  supreme  honor  of  uniting 
them,  of  giving  to  Greek  beauty  the  religious 
fervor  and  the  sweetness  of  the  Christian  spirit 
in  its  pristine  purity,  of  clothing  the  Hebraic 
abstractions  in  the  radiant  forms  of  Greece. 
/He  has  done  more  than  any  other  man  to 
purify  and  elevate  the  conception  of  physical 
beauty  and  to  make  us  comprehend  the  beauty 
of  "holiness.  The  world  has  never  been  the 
same  since  his  inspired  brush  effected  the 
magic  combination.  The  two  spirits  which 
had  been  at  conflict  for  ages  he  has  reconciled 
with  one  another,  and  we  know  now,  as  those 
who  preceded  him  could  never  know,  that  they 
can  be  blended  without  injury  to  either,  and 
that  from  their  union  there  can  spring  the 
dazzling  Euphorion,  as  serenely  beautiful  as 
an  Olympian  divinity,  as  pure  in  spirit  and  as 
full  of  heavenward  aspirations  as  the  Marys 
who  gazed  in  wonder  into  the  vacant  sepulchre. 
According  to  our  individual  temperament  or 
culture,  we  may  prefer  the  Hebraic  or  the 
classic  spirit ;  but  since  Raphael  has  made  the 
great  reconciliation  we  can  never  again  look 
upon  them  as  incompatible. 


22  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

One  great  element  in  Raphael's  fame  is  his 
perfect  purity.  The  soul  of  man  was  born  to 
rise.  It  may  flounder  in  the  mire,  but  it  will 
still  strive  with  its  soiled  and  broken  pinions  to 
beat  upward  into  the  pure  ether,  and  though 
it  may  fall  back  into  the  slime  from  which  it 
rose,  the  gaze  of  the  dying  eagle  will  still  be 
fixed  on  the  clear  heavens  where  it  might  have 
soared  on  extended  wing.  Therefore  the  art 
that  can  combine  a  beauty  that  will  allure  with 
a  purity  that  will  lift  the  soul  to  a  higher  plane 
is  the  art  that  will  last;  and  no  painter  com- 
bines these  qualities  in  the  same  measure  as 
does  Raphael.  There  are  some  who  have 
more  spiritual  fervor,  but  they  are  so  indiffer- 
ent to  external  beauty  that  they  repel  as  much 
as  they  attract.  There  are  others  who  have 
an  equal,  possibly  a  finer,  conception  of  physi- 
cal beauty,  but  they  have  not  the  same  power 
to  exalt  the  soul.  It  is  impossible  to  look 
upon  a  masterpiece  of  Raphael's  without  a 
sense  of  spiritual  elevation.  He  does  not,  like 
Michelangelo,  carry  us  to  dizzy  heights  around 
which  rage  the  storms  of  Titanic  passions ;  he 
leads  us  into  an  enchanted  land  bathed  in  a 


RAPHAEL  23 

mellow  radiance,  where  all  is  as  wholesome  as 
it  is  charming,  and  where  the  Christian  Graces 
move  about  upon  their  errands  of  love  and 
mercy  as  fair  as  Olympian  deities  and  with  the 
sweet  serenity  of  the  world's  youth.  It  mat- 
ters not  whether  we  are  Christians  or  pagans, 
his  works  appeal  to  all ;  and  we  can  never  look 
upon  them  without  carrying  away  with  us 
some  atom  of  their  serene  beauty  which  will 
make  us  aspire  to  a  purer  and  a  higher  life. 

Another  cause  of  Raphael's  success  is  his 
never  failing  humanity.  In  his  works  there  is 
always  to  be  found  that  touch  of  nature  that 
makes  all  men  kin.  Michelangelo  is  super- 
human, and  it  is  only  the  elect  who  can  be  in 
full  sympathy  with  his  mighty  and  solitary 
soul.  Raphael  deals  indeed  with  a  humanity 
that  is  perfected  and  lifted  into  a  serener 
atmosphere  than  is  possible  for  this  troubled 
world,  but  even  in  his  grandest  flights  he  re- 
mains human.  His  men  and  women  live  on  a 
higher  plane  than  ours,  but  they  are  never 
beyond  our  comprehension  or  our  sympathy. 
They  are  so  elevated  that  they  must  be  looked 
up  to  by  the  noblest,  but  they  are  never  so  far 


24  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

away  that  the  humblest  cannot  grasp  their  es- 
sential qualities.  vThey  are  select  spirits  who 
have  shaken  off  the  dross  of  earth,  but  the 
beauty,  the  dignity,  the  sweetness  of  true  man- 
hood and  womanhood  remain.  They  are  not 
supernatural  beings,  but  men  and  women  like 
ourselves,  purified,  elevated,  and  refined.  The 
sight  of  the  superhuman  is  dispiriting,  for  we 
know  that  we  can  never  reach  it.  But  the 
sight  of  the  humanly  perfect  is  encouraging, 
for  it  shows  us  an  ideal  that  we  can  under- 
stand, and  which  does  not  seem  beyond  the 
possibility  of  achievement.  Before  Michel- 
angelo's prodigious  figures  we  feel  a  sense 
of  our  littleness  and  incapacity;  but  before 
Raphael's  noble  creations  we  feel  exalted,  and 
we  say  to  ourselves,  Why  should  not  we  be 
thus  ?  In  his  power  to  combine  the  highest 
art  with  an  unfailing  spirit  of  humanity  Raphael 
is  supereminent. 

One  of  the  qualities  which  endear  him  most 
to  the  hearts  of  men  is  his  cheerful  serenity. 
Sometimes  we  enjoy  the  frenzied  orgy  of  ex- 
cessive mirth ;  sometimes  we  like  to  sup  full  of 
horrors;  but  both,  in  the  healthy  mind,  are 


RAPHAEL  25 

transient  tastes,  while  we  gladly  pass  our  lives 
in  the  contemplation  of  serene  cheerfulness. 
Therefore  Raphael's  are  pictures  that  we  love 
to  live  with,  that  become  dear  companions  of 
our  solitude,  lifting  the  troubled  soul  into  a 
clearer  and  brighter  atmosphere,  purging  it  of 
baleful  and  unwholesome  thoughts,  bringing  it 
to  repose  and  peace;  and  as  such  they  must 
always  be  inexpressibly  dear  to  the  human 
heart. 

And  it  is  to  Raphael  more  than  to  anyone 
'else  that  the  modern  world  owes  its  conception 
of  beauty — that  beauty  in  which  the  physical 
and  the  spiritual  shall  mingle  in  ever  varying 
proportions,  but  in  which  neither  shall  ever  be 
entirely  lacking;  the  beauty  of  the  "  Sistine 
Madonna,"  whose  great  eyes  are  full  of  the 
light  of  heaven  as  she  is  revealed  upon  her 
cloudy  throne;  the  beauty  of  the  "  Madonna 
of  the  Chair,"  the  ideal  of  wholesome  and 
happy  motherhood ;  the  beauty  of  the  young 
athlete  worthy  to  have  entered  the  Olympic 
games,  who  hangs  from  the  wall  in  the  "  Burn- 
ing of  the  Borgo  ";  the  beauty  of  the  Arch- 
angel Michael  transfixing  Satan  with  his  lance, 


26  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

unmoved  by  passion,  as  serene  in  the  per- 
formance of  his  glorious  duty  as  an  Olympian 
divinity;  the  beauty  of  Apollo  and  the  Muses 
thrilled  with  the  rapture  of  divine  harmony 
upon  the  wooded  summit  of  Parnassus, — beauty 
in  countless  forms,  never  sensual  and  gross, 
never  unsubstantial  and  inane,  always  truly 
physical  and  truly  spiritual,  always  attractive 
and  always  ennobling.  We  do  not  know  what 
our  ideal  of  beauty  would  have  been  without 
Raphael,  but  it  would  have  been  different, 
either  erring  like  Leonardo  on  the  side  of  the 
spiritual,  or  like  Titian  on  the  side  of  the  phys- 
ical. It  was  Raphael  who  struck  the  golden 
mean  and  established  our  standard. 

In  no  other  painter  have  the  real  and  the 
ideal  so  happily  blended.  He  is  upon  principle 
an  idealist,  seeking  to  elevate  human  nature 
and  to  give  it  a  surpassing  beauty,  dignity, 
and  grace.  But  it  is  not  the  washed-out,  intan- 
gible, unrealized  idealism  of  which  we  see  so 
much  to-day.  His  figures,  beautiful  as  they 
are,  remain  as  real  as  the  ugliest  transcripts  of 
low  life  given  us  by  Van  Ostade  or  Teniers. 
Even  his  fabulous  monsters,  his  dragons  and 


RAPHAEL  27 

chimeras,  are  not  mere  creatures  of  the  im- 
agination, but  are  rilled  with  an  intense,  ve- 
hement, palpitating  life,  and  we  feel  that  if 
Nature  had  made  such  things  she  would  have 
made  them  thus.  And  idealist  as  he  is,  he  is 
perhaps  the  most  absolute  realist  of  all  artists 
in  the  one  branch  where  absolute  realism  is  the 
highest  merit, — the  making  of  portraits.  He 
anticipated  Cromwell's  injunction  to  paint  him 
as  he  was,  warts  and  all,  and  it  is  doubtful 
whether  there  are  any  portraits  in  the  world 
more  remorselessly  realistic,  more  intensely  in- 
dividual, than  those  of  Raphael.  He  neither 
flatters  the  physical  aspect  of  the  faces  nor 
lends  to  them  any  of  the  charm  of  his  own 
gracious  personality;  but  with  a  pitiless  pre- 
cision almost  without  example  he  gives  them 
to  us  exactly  as  they  were,  with  all  their  im- 
perfections on  their  heads. 

Outside  of  the  physical  beauty  and  the 
spiritual  elevation  of  his  types,  Raphael's 
highest  qualities  as  an  artist — those  in  which  he 
remains  unapproached  and  unapproachable — 
are  in  illustration  and  composition. 

Art  may  be  roughly  divided  into  two  great 


28  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

elements,  decoration  and  illustration :  decora- 
tion, which  seeks  beauty  alone,  regardless  of 
meaning;  illustration,  which  seeks  meaning 
alone,  regardless  of  beauty.  Ordinarily  they 
are  combined,  so  that  the  thing  has  both 
beauty  and  meaning,  but  they  may  be  utterly 
divorced,  as  in  the  case  of  a  crazy  quilt,  which 
has  no  meaning  at  all,  yet  which  pleases  by 
reason  of  the  sensuous  charm  of  color,  and  in 
the  case  of  a  newspaper  woodcut  showing 
some  important  event,  which  has  no  beauty, 
but  which  interests  by  reason  of  the  occur- 
rences portrayed.  In  art  the  decorative  ele- 
ment is  the  universal,  appealing  to  all  times 
and  to  all  nations ;  while  the  illustrative  element 
is  transitory,  and  when  we  lose  interest  in  the 
events  depicted  we  lose  interest  in  the  work  as 
an  illustration ;  and  then  if  it  still  attracts,  it 
must  be  solely  on  account  of  the  decorative 
elements  which  it  contains.  But  a  vivid  illus- 
tration of  anything  about  which  people  are 
deeply  concerned,  as  a  terrible  conflagration  or 
a  great  battle  that  has  just  taken  place,  will 
interest  the  general  public  far  more  than  any 
decorative  picture,  however  beautiful,  and  will 


RAPHAEL  29 

bring  to  the  artist  a  more  immediate  fame  and 
a  greater  meed  of  popular  applause.  Qnjthe 
other-  hand,  a  mere  illustration  of  something 
far  away  or  almost  forgotten  will  fall  flat,  how- 
ever skilful  may  be  its  execution. 

Raphael  was  the  greatest  illustrator  that  ever 
lived,  and  he  has  devoted  his  incomparable 
talents  to  the  illustration  of  the  book  that  in- 
terests us  most,  to  depicting  the  events  of  the 
story  in  which  we  are  all  instructed  at  our 
mother's  knee,  whose  every  episode  is  familiar 
to  every  beholder,  and  which  to  most  of  us  is 
full  of  absorbing  interest ;  hence  his  vast  popu- 
larity with  all  mankind. 

If  the  time  shall  ever  come  when  the  Babe 
of  Bethlehem  shall  be  forgotten,  when  the 
meaning  of  the  pictures  is  lost  and  men  marvel 
vainly  why  angels  should  be  attending  an  in- 
fant sleeping  in  a  manger,  then  the  decorative 
elements  of  Raphael's  work  will  alone  remain, 
and  men  may  wonder  why  he  was  more  es- 
teemed than  Titian ;  but  as  long  as  Christianity 
maintains  its  hold,  the  story  which  he  illus- 
trates with  a  sweetness,  a  dignity,  a  beauty  that 
remain  unrivalled  will  preserve  its  perennial  at- 


30  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

traction,  and  the  popularity  of  his  works  will 
continue  unimpaired. 

It  is  the  fashion  now  to  depreciate  the  illus- 
trative or  literary  element  in  painting  even  to 
the  extent  of  denying  it  any  place  in  true  art. 
But  this  is  an  extreme  view.  The  illustrations 
of  the  life  of  Christ  can  have  no  meaning  for  a 
Turk  or  a  Japanese,  who  might  still  enjoy  the 
splendor  of  Titian's  coloring.  But  for  a  long 
time  the  civilized  world  has  been  brought  up 
in  the  teachings  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  it 
is  not  likely  that  the  Christian  legends  will  be 
forgotten  before  the  pictures  themselves  have 
crumbled  into  dust ;  and  art  can  perform  no 
greater  service  to  humanity  than  to  clothe  the 
popular  beliefs  in  noble  and  dignified  forms 
calculated  to  exalt  and  purify  the  people's 
faith.  Besides,  it  is  doubtful  whether  illustra- 
tion itself  is  inferior  in  artistic  merit  to  decora- 
tion. [The  imaginative  illustrator  who  enables 
us  to  realize  vividly  and  intensely  the  events 
of  the  past  or  of  the  present,  giving  form  and 
substance  to  our  faint  and  fleeting  impressions, 
so  that  we  can  feel  the  elevation  and  purity  of 
X  soul  of  which  humanity  is  capable,  and  can 


RAPHAEL  3 1 

raise  our  feeble  imaginations  to  a  comprehen- 
sion of  the  grandeur  and  solemnity  of  great 
events,  displays  a  talent  that  may  well  be 
paralleled  with  that  of  the  most  splendid  mas- 
ters of  decorative  art. 

From  what  I  have  said  of  Raphael's  suprem- 
acy as  an  illustrator  it  must  not  be  inferred 
that  his  works  lack  decorative  qualities.  As 
a  colorist  he  is  inferior  to  the  great  Venetians, 
but  his  color  is  always  agreeable  and  appropri- 
ate, and  the  harmony  of  his  lines  is  decorative 
in  the  highest  degree.  If  their  meaning  were 
entirely  lost,  his  pictures  would  still  be  ex- 
tremely attractive  for  their  mere  sensuous 
beauty. 

In  the  art  of  composition  Raphael's  pre-  ^Hu-Q^ 
eminence  has  never  been  contested.  In  the 
grouping  of  the  figures  so  as  to  form  an  agree- 
able and  impressive  whole  he  has  no  rival.  It 
is  not  merely  the  balancing  of  group  against 
group  on  a  flat  surface,  which  had  been  done  so 
often  and  so  admirably  before  him;  it  is  the 
composition  in  space,  the  composition  in  three 
dimensions,  in  which  he  excels.  No  man,  un- 
less it  be  Claude  Lorraine,  gives  so  vivid  an 


32  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

idea  of  space.  And  most  of  his  pictures  give 
not  merely  the  feeling  of  space,  but  of  its  limit- 
less extent.  He  may  not  show  a  far-reaching 
background,  but  there  is  a  sense  of  space 
stretching  beyond  and  away  into  infinite  dis- 
tance. And  this  sense  of  space  has  much  to 
do  with  the  impressiveness  of  his  work.  We 
have  all  climbed  to  some  eminence  from  which 
we  have  overlooked  a  wide  expanse  of  country, 
and  remember  the  thrill  which  we  have  experi- 
enced, the  exaltation,  the  sense  of  enlarged 
vitality,  the  charm  of  the  infinite  t'hat  has 
stirred  our  souls.  Something  of  this  there  is 
in  Raphael's  pictures.  And  his  skill  in  group- 
ing his  figures  is  such  that  they  remind  us  of 
the  rhythmic  harmony  of  music  ;  not,  like 
architecture,  of  music  that  is  frozen,  but  of 
music  that  is  throbbing  and  palpitating  with 
life. 

Nor  is  it  necessary  to  go  out  of  doors  to 
experience  the  feeling  of  space.  The  same 
exhilarating  sense  comes  upon  us  as  we  stand 
beneath  the  arches  of  a  vast  cathedral,  in  a 
lofty  hall,  or  a  lengthy  corridor,  and  none  of 
Raphael's  pictures  gives  it  more  strongly  than 


RAPHAEL  33 

the  "  School  of  Athens."  To  produce  it  is 
perhaps  the  highest  achievement  of  architec- 
ture; to  give  the  illusion  of  it  is  one  of  the 
greatest  feats  of  painting. 

Man's  puny  body  can  be  accommodated  in 
very  restricted  quarters,  but  his  intellect  pines 
for  extended  reaches,  for  limitless  distances. 
A  ceiling  seven  feet  high  will  serve  his  every 
physical  want,  but  unless  it  towers  far  above 
his  head  he  experiences  a  sense  of  confine- 
ment, of  suffocation.  It  is  all  a  matter  of  the 
imagination,  and  therefore  the  same  effect  of 
exhilarating  freedom  can  be  produced  by  a 
picture  so  disposed  as  to  give  a  feeling  of  the 
measureless  extent  of  space. 

As  I  have  said,  Claude  Lorraine  approached 
and  perhaps  equalled  Raphael  in  his  power  of 
creating  this  illusion,  but  they  work  in  widely 
different  ways  and  to  widely  different  ends. 
With  Claude  man  is  swallowed  up  in  nature. 
He  is  but  an  atom  in  the  illimitable  expanse, 
and  his  puny  figure  might  be  stricken  from  the 
landscape  without  material  loss.  But  with 
Raphael  it  is  nature  dominated  by  man.  The 
sense  of  space  is  the  same,  but  man  is  not  a 

3 


34  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

,  mere  incident,  he  is  the  master  spirit.  He  is 
not  there  to  adorn  the  landscape:  the  land- 
scape exists  for  him,  and,  limitless  as  it  is,  it  is 
subordinated  to  man's  dignity.  And  it  is  this 
faculty,  which  Raphael  possesses  in  so  supreme 
a  degree,  of  giving  at  the  same  time  a  realizing 
sense  of  nature's  boundless  extent  and  of  man's 
inherent  superiority,  that  imparts  to  Raphael's 
pictures  a  large  portion  of  their  unrivalled 
charm. 

Raphael  did  not  develop  this  faculty  un- 
aided. His  master,  Perugino,  possessed  it  in 
a  high  degree,  and  taught  it  to  his  pupil,  who 
surpassed  him  in  this  as  in  all  else.  And  if,  as 
many  critics  now  contend,  the  "  Apollo  and 
Marsyas  "  of  the  Louvre,  attributed  to  Ra- 
phael, and  the  "  Baptism  of  Christ  "  in  the 
National  Gallery,  attributed  to  Perugino,  are 
by  neither  of  those  masters,  there  must  have 
been  at  least  one  other  who  had  almost  equal 
skill  in  the  difficult  art  of  composing  so  as  to 
reveal  the  depths  of  space  while  asserting  man's 
pre-eminence. 

Raphael  was  the  most  receptive  artist  that 
ever  lived,  learning  something  from  everyone 


RAPHAEL  35 

with  whom  he  came  in  contact;  but  he  was 
never  an  eclectic.  We  are  familiar  with  eclec- 
ticism in  the  next  age,  when  the  Carracci  sought 
to  produce  pictures  combining  the  merits  of  all 
schools.  Their  works  exhibit  great  skill,  and 
are  sometimes  very  beautiful,  but  they  lack 
vitality.  With  Raphael  it  was  different. 
Everything  he  learned  was.  so  thoroughly  as- 
similated that  it  became  his  own,  and  in  pass- 
ing through  the  alembic  of  his  marvellous  brain 
it  was  transmuted  into  purest  gold. 

This  power  of  assimilation  possessed  by  some 
geniuses  is  startling.  Shakespeare's  knowledge 
of  antiquity  was  of  the  slightest,  extending 
little  beyond  Plutarch's  Lives;  and  yet  he 
has  given  us  in  Julius  Casar  the  most  living 
transcript  of  ancient  life  and  feeling  to  be 
found  in  the  whole  range  of  literature.  The 
flashlight  of  his  genius  penetrated  deeper  into 
the  spirit  of  antiquity  than  all  the  learned 
have  reached,  groping  painfully  with  their 
farthing  candles.  So  it  was  with  Raphael. 
His  life  was  so  short  and  so  busy  that  he  could 
not  have  become  a  very  profound  scholar ;  yet 
the  whole  spirit  of  Greek  poetry  is  in  his 


36  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

"  Galatea/'  the  whole  spirit  of  Greek  philos- 
ophy is  in  his  "School  of  Athens";  and 
while  he  became  so  thoroughly  a  Greek  that 
his  work  would  have  been  hailed  by  Pericles 
with  delight,  he  still  remained  the  highest  and 
purest  type  of  the  Christian  artist. 

When  he  arrived  at  the  zenith  of  his  fame 
Raphael  was  so  overwhelmed  with  commis- 
sions that  Briareus  himself  would  not  have 
been  able  to  meet  the  demands  upon  him,  and 
the  master  had  recourse  to  the  assistance  of 
his  pupils,  often  furnishing  only  a  sketch,  and 
leaving  to  them  the  entire  work  of  painting. 
For  this  he  has  been  greatly  blamed,  but  it 
was  a  priceless  gain  to  art.  His  inexhaustible 
fertility  enabled  him  to  dash  off  these  designs 
with  extreme  rapidity,  and  in  the  meantime  he 
was  himself  working  industriously  with  his 
brush.  The  patron  who  thought  that  he  was 
getting  a  picture  by  Raphael's  own  hand  might 
have  had  cause  to  complain,  but  we  should 
only  be  grateful.  Without  this  collaboration 
we  should  have  had  few,  if  any,  additional 
productions  by  Raphael  himself,  and  we 
should  have  lost  numerous  treasures  of  ines- 


RAPHAEL  37 

timable  value.  Who  would  not  have  the 
"  Holy  Family  of  Francis  the  First,"  with 
that  Madonna  and  that  Magdalen  which  are 
among  the  most  beautiful  faces  that  even  Ra- 
phael drew,  and  the  magnificent "  St.  Michael  " 
of  the  Louvre,  perhaps  the  most  glorious  type 
of  youthful  manhood  to  be  found  in  all  the 
range  of  modern  art,  painted  as  they  are  by 
the  hand  of  Giulio  Romano,  rather  than  not 
have  them  at  all  ?  Who  would  not  have  the 
"  Battle  of  Constantine,"  perhaps  the  most 
splendid  battle-piece  ever  produced,  worked 
out  after  Raphael's  death  by  his  scholars  ac- 
cording to  his  designs,  rather  than  the  unin- 
spired compositions  that  they  would  have 
turned  off  if  left  to  their  own  devices  ? 

To  realize  the  difference  between  Raphael 
and  his  pupils  we  need  only  to  go  to  the  Far- 
nesina  at  Rome,  and  look  at  his  "  Galatea," 
the  most  beautiful  of  all  the  lovely  pictures 
that  have  been  inspired  by  the  art  of  antiquity, 
so  full  of  the  sea's  splendor  and  of  the  exultant 
spirit  of  pagan  joy,  and  then  pass  into  the  ad- 
joining enclosed  loggia  decorated  by  his  pupils 
with  the  story  of  Cupid  and  Psyche  after  his 


38  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

designs.  Nothing  could  be  more  deliciously 
perfect  than  his  own  painting,  while  the  work 
of  his  disciples  offends  the  eye  by  its  coarseness 
and  haste.  Still,  through  the  imperfection  of 
the  workmanship  there  shines  forth  the  divine 
beauty  of  Raphael's  conception.  The  pictures 
would  have  been  incomparably  more  precious 
had  they  been  wrought  by  the  master's  own 
hand;  but  in  that  event  we  must  have  done 
without  many  a  priceless  masterpiece  which  we 
could  afford  to  sacrifice  even  less  than  we  could 
afford  to  dispense  with  this  delightful  specimen 
of  mural  decoration.  Owing  to  the  brevity  of 
Raphael's  life  his  works,  without  the  assistance 
of  his  pupils,  must  have  been  comparatively 
few^  Each  would  have  been  perfect,  but  we 
should  have  been  deprived  of  many  a  marvel 
of  composition,  whose  merits  may  be  impaired, 
but  not  destroyed,  by  the  inferiority  of  the 
workmanship. 

Apart  from  the  assistance  received  from  his 

-f  disciples    Raphael   was    the    most    productive 

artist  that  ever  lived.     His  early  death  limited 

his  artistic  activity  to  a  period  of  twenty  years, 

and  yet  he  has  filled  the  galleries  of  the  world 


RAPHAEL  39 

with  the  most  varied  masterpieces.  He  was 
unceasingly  industrious,  but  he  must  have  had 
the  most  intensely  creative  imagination  in 
history.  Just  as  Michelangelo  could  see  the 
statue  in  the  marble,  begging  to  be  liberated, 
so  he  must  have  seen  upon  the  naked  canvas, 
as  though  projected  by  a  magic  lantern,  the 
fair  faces,  the  graceful  forms,  the  appropriate 
attitudes  that  were  to  make  up  the  picture, 
and  beyond  them  those  wide  reaches  of  hill 
and  meadow,  always  different  and  always 
lovely,  that  carry  the  glance  away  into  illimit- 
able space.  He  saw  it  all  with  the  mind's  eye 
as  clearly  as  we  see  it  now  that  he  has  given  it 
tangible  shape,  and  in  the  realization  of  it 
there  was  none  of  that  doubt  and  hesitation 
which  sometimes  paralyzes  even  a  supreme 
genius  like  Leonardo.  He  saw  exactly  what 
he  wanted  to  paint,  and  the  slender  white 
fingers  knew  exactly  how  to  paint  it.  The  re- 
sponse of  the  hand  to  the  mind  was  instan- 
taneous and  unfailing.  He  worked  as  a  bird 
sings,  from  the  fulness  of  an  overflowing  heart, 
spontaneously,  without  an  effort,  knowing  pre- 
cisely the  note  that  he  would  strike.  When  he 


4O  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

thought  of  an  occurrence  it  did  not  present 
itself  to  him  in  the  vague  and  intangible  way 
in  which  it  appears  to  most  of  us.  The  whole 
scene  rose  up  before  him,  not  as  it  was  irTfact, 
but  as  it  might  have  happened  in  a  world 
purer,  serener,  more  beautiful  than  this,  and 
his  magic  pencil  hastened  to  turn  the  vision 
into  an  everlasting  reality.  Where  other  artists 
fumble  about,  seeking  the  correct  note,  he 
caught  it  at  once ;  where  they  hesitate,  doubt- 
ing the  right  path,  he  advanced  blithely,  seeing 
the  end  from  the  beginning  and  the  flowery 
road  leading  to  the  goal.  It  was  this  wonder- 
ful capacity  for  mental  images,  this  concord  of 
all  his  faculties,  that  enabled  him  to  produce 
so  much  and  to  do  it  all  so  well.  The  facul- 
ties of  most  of  us  are  like  the  pieces  of  an 
orchestra  playing  each  a  different  air;  while 
his  were  all  attuned  together,  each  aiding  the 
other  in  the  production  of  the  divine  harmony 
that  thrills  our  souls  across  the  ages. 

If  you  do  not  realize  Raphael's  greatness 
when  you  first  see  one  of  his  masterpieces,  do 
not  despair.  Few  are  they  who  do.  JThe  Ti- 
tanic force  of  Michelangelo  is  more  impressive, 


RAPHAEL  41 

Titian's  voluptuous  charms  are  more  alluring, 
the  haunting  smile  of  Leonardo  has  a  subtler 
fascination.  But  none  of  them  grows  upon 
one  like  Raphael.  To  appreciate  him  wholly 
we  must  slowly  realize  the  vast  variety  of  com- 
positions in  which  he  excelled.  There  are 
perhaps  others  who  could  have  produced  the 
delicious  pagan  beauty  of  the  "  Galatea,"  the 
noble  dignity  of  the  "  School  of  Athens," 
the  dramatic  intensity  of  the  "  Expulsion  of 
Heliodorus,"  the  hurrying  tumult  of  the 
Battle  of  Constantine,"  the  sweet,  soul- 
stirring  loveliness  of  any  of  his  numerous  Ma- 
donnas, or  the  agony  of  his  "  Entombment  " ; 
but  who  is  there  who  could  have  produced 
them  all,  or  other  works  so  various  in  their 
character,  so  surpassing  in  their  merit  ? 


MICHELANGELO 
(1477-1564) 

IT  is  difficult  to  think  of  Raphael  without 
also  thinking  of  Michelangelo.  j^Beside 
the  beautiful  countenance  of  the  divine  Um- 
brian  there  always  rises  the  grim  visage  of  the 
mighty  Florentine.  This  is  partly  due  to  their 
rivalry  in  life,  still  more  to  the  law  of  contrasts^ 
Each  stood  upon  a  summit  to  which  succeeding 
generations  of  artists  have  vainly  sought  to 
climb;  but  while  Raphael's  mountain  rises  in 
the  clear  ether  bathed  in  sunshine  and  clothed 
in  verdure,  Michelangelo's  is  wrapped  in  clouds 
and  beaten  upon  by  the  storms  of  Titanic  pas- 
sions. Which  mountain  is  the  higher  we  can- 
not say.  Sometimes  the  verdurous  summit 
seems  to  lift  itself  farther  into  the  serene  air ; 
sometimes  it  appears  dwarfed  in  the  presence 
of  the  rugged  sublimity  of  the  other. 


MICHELANGELO  43 

Time  usually  settles  such  questions  of  pre- 
eminence. We  all  remember  Victor  Hugo's 
fine  poem  telling  of  his  search  among  the 
Pyrenees  for  the  Pic  du  Midi.  All  the  moun- 
tains seemed  of  the  same  height,  but  when  he 
had  given  up  the  quest  in  despair,  and  was  far 
advanced  on  his  return  journey  to  the  North, 
he  looked  back,  and  behold,  the  Pic  du  Midi 
standing  alone  upon  the  horizon's  verge.  But 
time  has  not  settled  the  contest  between 
Michelangelo  and  Raphael.  The  men  who 
saw  them  daily  at  their  work  were  divided  in 
their  judgment  as  to  which  was  the  greater 
artist,  and  their  descendants  remain  equally 
unable  to  agree. 

JBoth  devoted  their  best  talents  to  the  illus- 
tration of  the  Bible]  but  it  was  the  Old  Testa- 
ment with  its  sternness  and  its  God  of  Wrath 
that  appealed  to  Michelangelo,  while  it  was 
the  New,  with  its  sweetness  and  its  God  of 
Love,  that  attracted  RaphaelJ  Sometimes 
they  invaded  one  another's  province,  but  with 
moderate  success.  If  Raphael  had  painted 
only  the  Bible  pictures  of  the  Loggie,  or  if 
Michelangelo  had  produced  only  his  "  Christ," 


44  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

his  "  Pieta,"  and  his  "  Holy  Family  of  the 
Tribune,"  they  would  have  been  esteemed 
capable  artists  and  nothing  more ;  but  in  their 
proper  spheres  each  has  remained  without  a 
rival. 

[  There  was  never  a  more  fervent  Christian 
than  Michelangelo,  but  there  have  been  few 
who  so  utterly  failed  to  grasp  the  Christian 
spirit  of  sweetness  and  light,  patience  and 
humility.  Darkness  and  gloom,  wrath  and 
defiance,  an  exultation  in  physical  and  mental 
strength,  a  pride  like  that  of  Prometheus  that 
would  never  bow  though  the  eagle  should  rend 
his  vitals  through  eternity — these  are  the  senti- 
ments that  we  read  in  his  works.  He  tries  to 
be  a  Christian,  but  his  soul  is  with  the  Hebrew 
prophetsj  He  was  fit  to  stand  beside  Elijah 
as  he  stretched  out  his  hands  on  Mount  Car- 
mel,  cursing  the  followers  of  Baal  ;  beside 
Isaiah  as  he  hurled  his  maledictions  upon 
Babylon  the  Great.  £He  endeavors  to  repre- 
sent Christian  subjects,  but  all  in  vainj  His 
Christ  of  Santa  Maria  sopra  Minerva  is  an 
athlete  rejoicing  in  his  strength,  who  would 
have  borne  the  cross  to  Golgotha  with  a  smile; 


MICHELANGELO  45 

not  the  Man  of  Sorrows  whose  fragile  body 
sank  beneath  its  weight.  Change  the  head 
but  a  little,  and  it  might  stand  beside  the 
statues  of  the  Olympic  victors  wrought  by 
Myron  and  Polycletus.  The  Christ  of  the 
"  Last  Judgment  "  is  not  the  gentle  Saviour 
of  Mankind  welcoming  the  elect  into  the 
mansions  that  he  has  made  ready  to  receive 
them ;  he  is  the  God  of  Wrath  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets  embodied  in  a  form  of  unexampled 
muscular  development  even  exceeding  that 
Torso  of  the  Belvedere  that  Michelangelo  ad- 
mired so  much.  The  master  had  been  asked 
to  restore  the  missing  limbs  to  this  headless 
trunk  of  unequalled  power.  This  he  was  un- 
willing to  attempt  in  the  marble,  but  has  sought 
to  surpass  it  in  his  Christ,  who  resembles 
Apollo  hurling  the  thunderbolts  of  Jove 
against  the  ascending  Titans,  but  with  an  im- 
measurable strength  and  a  vengeful  implacabil- 
ity of  which  the  Greeks  had  no  conception. 
The  "Pieta"  of  St.  Peter's  has  been  much 
and  justly  admired;  but  it  is  the  physical 
beauty  of  the  corpse  of  Christ,  and  the  fidelity 
with  which  the  limpness  of  death  is  depicted 


46  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

that  attract  the  attention,  not  the  spiritual 
significance;  nor  can  any  trace  of  Christian 
spirit  be  found  in  the  "  Holy  Family  of  the 
Tribune,"  while  the  naked  youths  in  the  back- 
ground, which  are  perhaps  the  best  part  of  the 
composition,  are  strangely  out  of  keeping  with 
the  subject.  These  and  his  Madonnas  in  stone 
and  his  "  Descent  from  the  Cross  "  are  precious 
masterpieces,  but  they  do  nothing  to  body 
forth  in  living  shapes  the  Christian  Gospel,  and 
a  pagan  who  should  infer  from  them  the  genius 
of  Christianity  would  fall  into  a  singular  mis- 
conception. 

The  spirit  of  antiquity,  whether  Assyrian  or 
Egyptian,  Hebrew,  Greek,  or  Roman,  was 
always  masculine.  jThe  feminine  element,  al- 
though ever  present,  was  strictly  subordinate^ 
[The  virtues  of  antiquity  were  the  manly  virtues 
— courage,  pride,  independence,  integrity,  pa- 
triotism. It  was  these  embodied  in  noble 
forms  of  perfect  manhood  that  ancient  art  re- 
joiced to  portray.  But  they  easily  degenerated 
into  arrogance,  revengefulness,  and  cruelty, 
and  when  they  had  done  so,  and  beneath  the 
tyranny  of  Tiberius  the  burden  of  the  world's 


MICHELANGELO  47 

anguish  had  become  greater  than  it  could  bear, 
Christ  arose  to  proclaim  the  superiority  of 
the  feminine  virtues  of  love,  gentleness,  and 
humility,  and  to  preach  the  brotherhood  of 
man.  Of  the  new  gospel  Raphael  became  the 
supreme  exponent  in  art,  but  Michelangelo 
remained  with  the  mighty  men  of  old,  the  last 
and  the  greatest  to  assert  the  supremacy  of 

the 


And  he  carried  his  preference  for  the  mas- 
culine  to  the  point  of  being  abnormal,  almost 
unnatural.  He  loved  no  woman  unless  the 
Platonic  sentiment  that  he  experienced  for 
Vittoria  Colonna  in  his  old  age  could  be  called 
by  such  a  name.  His  affection  went  out  to  his 
own  sex,  and  when  he  emerged  from  his  soli- 
tude peopled  by  stupendous  phantoms,  it  was 
the  society  of  men  that  he  sought,  particularly 
of  young  men  distinguished  for  the  beauty  of 
their  persons. 

It  is  the  fashion  to  admire  indiscriminately 
all  the  works  of  a  great  man,  and  many  laud 
the  beauty  of  the  women  of  Michelangelo.  It 

is  trne  thai-  many  nf  them   arf>  beautiful,  butnit 

is  not  the.  hpRiitv  of  womanr    The  Eve  of  the 


48  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

"  Creation  "  has  been  much  commended;  but 
in  point  of  fact  she  is  heavy  and  somewhat 
gross,  a  great  Titaness  sprung  immediately 
from  the  bosom  of  Mother  Earth.  And  how 
inferior  she  is  to  the  glorious  Adam  in  the  ad- 
joining fresco,  receiving  the  spark  of  life  from 
the  outstretched  finger  of  God.  He  likewise 
is  a  Titan,  but  he  is  one  who,  like  Ixion,  might 
aspire  to  the  embraces  of  Juno.  The  ' '  Night* ' 
and  the  "  Dawn  "  of  the  Medici  tombs  are  also 
of  the  Titan  race,  the  one  plunged  in  the 
dreamless  sleep  that  follows  the  exhaustion 
of  intolerable  woe,  the  other  waking  from 
troubled  slumbers  to  look  in  agony  upon  the 
hateful  light  of  another  day.  They  are  very 
beautiful,  but  in  their  beauty  there  is  no  trace 
of  feminine  charm.  It  is  the  beauty  of  elemen- 
tal creatures  that  Earth  might  have  formed  in 
her  teeming  womb  when  she  was  producing 
the  great  cave  tiger  and  the  mammoth.  The 
lower  limbs  of  the  "  Night  "  and  of  the  Eve  of 
the  "  Temptation  "  are  surpassingly  fine,  but 
they  have  none  of  woman's  softness.  Beneath 
the  tightly  drawn  skin  we  see  the  iron  muscles 
of  a  victor  in  the  race-course  at  Olympia. 


MICHELANGELO  49 

/No  man  could  love  one  of  Michangelo's 
women.  They  are  not  human.  We  can  no 
more  love  them  than  we  can  love  an  elemental 
force  J  If  the  "  Night  "  should  shake  off  her 
slumber  and  sit  upright  upon  her  couch,  if 
"  Dawn  "  should  rear  herself  erect,  we  should 
fly  in  terror  from  their  superhuman  strength 
and  their  unspeakable  despair.  Frankenstein's 
monster  might  claim  them  for  his  mates,  but 
they  could  only  inspire  terror  in  our  puny 
hearts.  HLven  his  Madonnas  are  not  lovable,./ 
They  are  strong,  vigorous  women  whom  we 
admire,  but  who  could  stir  no  tender  passion 
in  our  bosoms. 

£j3ut  on  the  other  hand  no  artist  among  the 
moderns,  perhaps  none  even  among  the  arf^ 
cients,  has  ever  felt  so  keenly  and  expressed  so 
well  the  beauty  of  manhood — of  manhood  in 
its  highest  perfection,  strong  in  body,  with 
every  muscle  developed  to  the  utmost  and 
capable  of  the  intensest  strain,  powerful  and 
undaunted  in  mind,  ready  for  every  conflict,,? 
for  every  dangerTJ  Look  at  the  youths  who 
adorn  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel.  They 
are  beautiful,  proud,  and  manly  as  the  Apollo 


5O  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

Belvedere.  fThey  are  not  unhuman  like  his 
women.  They  are  men  as  men  should  bej  as 
we  can  imagine  them  to  have  been  in  the 
heroic  days  when  Jason  sought  the  Golden 
Fleece,  when  Theseus  struggled  with  the  Min- 
otaur, and  Hercules  hunted  the  monsters  in 
their  lairs.  If  called  to  life  they  would  win  the 
love  of  woman  and  the  admiration  of  man,  and 
their  beauty  would  be  as  conspicuous  as  their 
strength.  And  where  will  we  find  the  beauty 
of  youth  combined  with  the  pathos  of  despair 
as  in  the  finer  of  the  two  "  Captives  "  of  the 
Louvre  ?  The  "  Hermes  of  Olympia  "  is  not 
more  beautiful,  the  "  Dying  Alexander"  is 
less  pathetic;  and  the  hopeless  dejection  of 
the  bright  young  spirit  now  bound  in  fetters 
is  revealed  not  merely  in  the  lovely  face  but 
in  every  muscle  of  the  perfect  form. 
M3ut  beautiful  as  are  these  adolescent  figures, 
the  essential  of  Michelangelo's  art  is  over- 
whelming power,  that  terribilitct  which  amazed 
all  his  contemporaries  and  continues  to  awe 
the  world.  There  is  no  other  artist  who  lifts 
[the  soul  so  high.  In  the  presence  of  his  super- 
\human  shapes  weighed  down  by  thoughts  too 


MICHELANGELO  5! 

/great  for  mortal  comprehension,  bowed  with 
/  a  grief  which  tongue  can  never  utter,  or  else 

/  defiantly  erect  like  Ajax  upon  the  storm-beaten 
rock,  we  feel  that  we  are  transported  into 

V  another  world  peopled  by  mighty  and  terrible 
^-shadows,  forms  of  supernatural  sorrow,  despair, 
and  wrath,  before  whose  vast  elemental  pas- 
sions we  quail  as  before  some  convulsion  of 
nature J  Look  at  his  "  Moses,"  and  think 
what  would  happen  if  the  giant,  so  instinct 
with  life  even  in  the  marble,  should  arise  and 
speak!  How  the  multitudes  would  cower  be- 
fore him !  What  thunders,  like  those  of  Sinai, 
would  roll  from  his  mighty  lips!  We  should 
think  no  more  of  resisting  him  than  we  should 
struggle  with  an  earthquake.  Before  his  over- 
mastering will  we  could  only  bow  in  terror  and 
submit.  Imagine  the  4<  David  "  alive  again, 
with  that  face  that  would  defy  a  world  in 
arms!  Before  his  wrath  a  host  of  Goliaths 
would  fly  in  consternation.  Glorious  in  their 
strength  as  are  the  deities  of  Greece,  we  feel 
that  if  the  war  had  been  with  Titans  of  this 
mould  the  battlements  of  Olympus  would  have 
been  scaled  and  the  Gotterdammerung  would 


52  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

have  come  ;  and  upon  the  ruins  of  Jove's 
palaces  there  would  have  sat  the  terrible  Christ 
of  the  "  Last  Judgment  "  condemning  the 
vanquished  with  an  inexorable  resolve.  But 
such  creations  could  not  exist  in  Hellas. 

Happy  Greeks!  The  iron  had  not  entered 
their  soul,  they  had  not  bent  beneath  the 
burden  of  an  unutterable  despair,  they  had  not 
striven  to  float  among  the  stars  on  pinions  that 
would  not  lift  them  even  from  the  earth ;  and 
they  could  have  formed  no  conception  of  the 
ideas  which  Michelangelo  sought  to  body  forth 
in  his  stupendous  shapes.  The  simple  serenity 
and  directness  of  their  imagination  is  impos- 
sible to  us.  They  belong  to  a  different  and  a 
happier  world.  What  they  desire  is  clear  and 
tangible.  They  are  not  haunted  by  impossible 
dreams,  by  vague  and  unutterable  longings. 
Their  art  is  the  reflection  of  their  own  tranquil 
souls.  It  is  immensely  beautiful,  but  it  makes 
to  us  no  personal  appeal.  We  admire  it  as  we 
admire  Homer,  but  it  cannot  thrill  us  like  a  line 
of  Shakespeare,  voicing  our  inmost  thoughts,  or 
a  statue  of  Michelangelo.  We  feel  no  kinship 
with  the  Venus  of  Melos  or  the  Apollo  Belve- 


MI  CHELA  NGEL  0  53 

dere.  They  are  too  far  away,  too  alien  to  the 
ideas  and  feelings  that  stir  us  now.  We  can- 
not fathom  the  full  meaning  of  Michelangelo's 
prodigious  figures ;  but  we  feel  that,  Titanic  as 
they  are,  they  are  still  modern,  and  that  they 
utter  in  superhuman  tones  the  aspirations  and 
the  sorrows  of  living  humanity ;  and  they  have 
a  fascination  for  us  that  is  never  found  even  in 
the  noblest  works  of  Greece. 

Artists  who  endeavor  to  express  violent  pas- 
sions usually  express  nothing  else.  Their 
picture  or  their  statue  is  only  a  symbol  of  the 
passion  sought  to  be  portrayed,  of  wrath  or 
fear,  of  love  or  hate.  We  see  at  a  glance  the 
full  message  which  they  seek  to  utter.  The 
figures  are  there  to  say  a  certain  thing  and  they 
say  it,  well  or  ill.  Understanding  all  that 
they  would  communicate,  we  lose  interest,  and 
return  to  them  again  only  to  admire  the  beauty 
of  line  or  color.  But  Michelangelo's  creations, 
like  Shakespeare's,  are  real  beings.  We  can 
no  more  read  their  inmost  hearts  than  we  can 
read  the  inmost  hearts  of  living  men ;  and  their 
souls  are  vaster,  more  complex,  than  poor 
humanity  can  be.  Their  depths  remain  eter- 


54  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

nally  unsounded.  We  see  the  storms  beating 
upon  the  surface,  but  we  also  understand  that 
there  are  abysses  which  the  eye  can  never 
reach.  They  are  infinitely  suggestive  like  the 
music  of  some  mighty  symphony.  The  more 
we  see  them  the  more  their  power  grows  upon 
us,  the  more  unfathomable  do  we  discover 
them  to  be. 

No  man  so  dominates  the  soul  as  Michel- 
angelo. As  Rogers  says  of  the  fearfuFBfood- 
ing  figure  that  sits  upon  the  tomb  of  Lorenzo, 
meditating  some  frightful  purpose  of  revenge 
and  death,  he  "  fascinates  and  is  intolerable." 
In  the  presence  of  these  awful  shapes  we  feel 
as  we  have  felt  in  some  lofty  mountain  region 
with  nothing  around  save  stony  desolation. 
Michelangelo  is  more  terrible  than  Milton  or 
than  Wagner,  for  they  comprehend  the  sweet- 
ness of  love,  the  charm  of  womanhood,  the 
rapture  of  exchanged  caresses.  They  stroll  at 
times  through  the  vales  of  Paradise,  butjae 
wanders  forever  upon  the  mountains  amid 
storms  and  darkness,  or  if  he  descends,  it  is 
with  a  poor  grace  "as  if  he  scorned  his  spirit 
that  could  be  moved  to  smile  at  anything." 


MICH  EL  A  NGEL  0  55 

But    his    mountain    solitudes  are    peopled  by 
glorious  dreams  such  as  he  alone  has  dreamt. 

Yet  it  is  a  mistake  to  speak  of  them  as 
dreams.  In  the  presence  of  his  prodigious 
figures  we  feel  that  they  are  the  reality,  and 
that  we  are  only  shadows  that  flit  before  their 
face.  As  Venetian  art  was  devoted  to  color 
and  Umbrian  to  grace,  Florentine  art  had  been 
devoted  to  the  realization  of  the  human  form.f 
From  Giotto  down  the  Florentine  masters  had 
depicted  figures  that  seemed  more  real  than 
life.  This  power  over  the  reality  of  things  was\ 
inherited  by  Michelangelo,  and  applied  to 
types  of  such  stupendous  energy,  so  instinct 
with  passionate  vitality,  so  colossal  in  their 
dimensions  and  so  overwhelming  in  their 
power,  that  in  their  presence  all  else  seems 
trivial  and  unsubstantial.  Beneath  the  Sis- 
tine's  vault  there  are  noble  pictures  by  illus- 
trious masters,  Perugino,  Botticelli,  and  the 
like.  But  who  deigns  to  look  at  them  ?  In 
another  place  they  would  enthrall  our  attention, 
but  beneath  these  overwhelming  shapes,  how 
unreal,  how  insipid  they  appear!  Others  have 
tried  his  terrible  style,  but  have  only  succeeded 


56  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

in  producing  spiritless  giants,  while  his  are  im- 
bued with  an  intense  vehement  life,  and  are 
worthy  associates  of  those  sons  of  God  who 
forsook  heaven  to  woo  the  daughters  of  men, 
only  to  brood  despairingly  over  the  loss  of  their 
celestial  home. 

How  is  it  that  he  produces  this  effect  ?  It 
is  not  merely  his  mighty  soul,  it  is  also  his  per- 
fect knowledge.  He  alone  knew  all  the  capac- 
ities of  the  body  as  a  vehicle  of  expression. 
Most  artists  are  content  to  exhibit  passions 
only  in  the  face.  He  comprehended  that 

'every  passion  quivers  in  every  muscle,  and 
knew  how  to  utter  the  full  burden  of  the  flesh. 
He  was  the  first  in  modern  times  entirely  to 

^understand  the  importance  of  the  nude — to  see 
rhat  in  the  successful  depicting  of  the  naked 
body  so  as  to  make  every  limb  cry  out  the 
emotions  of  the  soul,  art  attains  its  completest 
utterance.  No  man  has  ever  comprehended 
the  use  of  the  unclothed  form  as  he.  With 
others  we  look  to  the  countenance  to  see  what 
the  subject  feels;  with  him  we  look  to  the 
torso  and  the  limbs.  Each  sinew  speaks  and 
proclaims  its  tale  of  agony  or  joy.  In  ancient 


MICHELANGELO  57 

art  the  body  rarely  expressed  anything  save 
the  tranquillity  of  strength  or  beauty,  or  the 
harmony  of  rhythmical  exertion.  Michel- 
angelo's contemporaries  unveiled  it  only  for 
purposes  of  study  or  to  reveal  its  sensuous 
beauty.  He  alone  used  it  as  the  vehicle  for\  '"**&*  * 

v — ~ ~ — ~~~~ — ~        _-..._--  ^™C-jr>  ^"^ 

the  utterance  of  all  the  passions  of  humanity, 
its  love  and  hate,  its  rapture  and  despair.  + 

He^was  born  a  sculptor,  and  a  sculptor  he  • 
remained,  even  when  he  wielded  the  brusl^ 
He  was  never  a  painter  like  Raphael.  He  had 
none  of  the  power  of  composition  of  the  Prince 
of  Painters.  When  you  see  a  picture  by  the 
latter  the  first  thing  that  strikes  you  is  the 
harmony  of  the  design.  It  is  only  after  you 
have  looked  at  it  in  its  entirety  for  a  long  time 
that  it  occurs  to  you  to  examine  the  details, 
and  probably  you  will  look  at  it  for  years 
charmed  with  the  exquisite  rhythm  of  the 
balancing  lines  without  going  further.  But 
Michelangelo  never  pleases  you  in  this  way. 
His  composition  is  rarely  satisfactory,  some-  '"' 
times  confused.  You  do  not  think  of  looking 
at  his  pictures  as  a  whole.  It  is  the  individual 
figures  that  seize  the  eye  and  rivet  the  atten- 


RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 


tion.  How  differently  Raphael  would  have 
painted  the  "  Last  Judgment."  Christ  would 
have  been  a  benignant  and  merciful  judge,  not 
an  avenging  god.  Stress  would  have  been  laid 
rather  upon  the  happiness  of  the  blest  than  on 
the  agony  of  the  damned.  The  Virgin  would 
not  have  crouched  timid  and  unnoticed  beside 
her  Son.  Above  all,  instead  of  a  confused 
group  of  writhing  shapes  whose  general  pur- 
pose is  scarcely  intelligible  after  the  most 
patient  study,  we  should  have  had  a  composi- 
tion comprehensible  at  a  glance,  and  of  such 
rhythmic  harmony  that  we  should  probably 
never  have  thought  to  examine  the  details. 
But  if  we  did,  how  weak  the  individual  figures 
would  have  seemed  compared  with  this  crowd 
of  writhing  Titans  trying  to  scale  heaven  and 
hurled  back  by  the  wrath  divine !  In  Michel- 
angelo's great  fresco  we  rarely  try  to  make  out 
the  general  plan.  Each  figure  attracts  on  its 
own  account.  Each  is  an  amazing  study  in 

<^** 

anatomical    expression.       Strong,    passionate, 
wrathful,  despairing,  they  struggle  up  or  fall 
\backward  with  superhuman  force.     And,  par- 
adoxical as  the  statement  seems,  perhaps  the 


MICHELANGELO  59 

finest  of  all  his  statues  are  those  created  by  his 
brush ;  for  these  prodigious  forms  of  the  Sis- 
tine's  vault  and  of  the  "  Last  Judgment  "  be- 
long to  statuary  and  not  to  painting.  They 
could  be  transferred  to  the  marble  with  no  loss 
of  effect.  They  are  self-sufficing,  they  exist 
for  themselves,  and  could  be  freed  from  the 
wall  to  which  they  are  attached.  They  are 
not  mere  parts  of  a  scene  like  the  figures  in  a 
true  picture.  The  sculptor  has  made  them 
with  his  brush  because  he  was  so  commanded, 
and  because  he  did  not  have  time  to  chisel 
them  out  in  stone;  but  they  are  the  works  of  a 
sculptor,  and  to  statues  they  must  be  compared. 
^No  artist  was  ever  so  wrapped  up  in  man. 
For  the  beauties  of  nature  Michelangelo  seems 

Vto  have  cared  nothing.  The  backgrounds  of 
Raphael's  pictures  are  frequently  marvels  of 
charming  landscapes,  and  many  of  the  most 
delightful  scenes  ever  delineated  are  to  be 
found  in  the  pre-Raphaelite  masters.  But  for 
all  this  Michelangelo  had  no  eyes.  His  only 

/interest  was  in  the  human  form  and  in  the  feel- 
ings of  humanity  heightened  to  a  supernatural 
^degree  and  expressed  with  Titanic  power.  He 


6O  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

does  not  rejoice  in  peaceful  prospects  like  Ra- 
phael ;  he  does  not  dream  of  fantastic  rocks  like 
Leonardo ;  he  does  not  even  think  of  the  deso- 
late sublimity  of  mountain  summits.  Man  is 
sufficient  for  him,  and  man's  nude  form  suffices 
to  utter  all  his  message.  Man  is  even  the  only 
ornament  that  he  employs,  and  no  one  else  has 
so  fully  understood  the  decorative  qualities  of 
the  body.  The  grandest  piece  of  decoration 
in  the  world  is  the  Sistine's  vault,  and  the 
only  element  that  enters  into  it  is  the  human 
figure,  sometimes  draped,  generally  unclothed. 
No  one,  not  even  Michelangelo,  can  entirely 
escape  the  spirit  of  his  time,  and  one  reason 
why  he  exults  so  much  in  physical  strength  is 
that  it  was  so  highly  esteemed  by  his  contem- 
poraries. The  revival  of  Greek  learning  with 
the  pride  of  the  Greeks  in  the  triumphs  of 
physical  vigor  at  the  national  games,  added  to 
the  warlike  instincts  inherited  from  the  Middle 
Ages,  gave  a  great  interest  to  all  that  con- 
[cerned  muscular  development;  and  the  ineffi- 
Iciency  of  the  laws,  the  insecurity  of  life  and 
(property,  the  constant  necessity  of  repelling 
assaults  and  the  temptation  to  make  them  in 


MICHELANGELO  6 1 

that  troubled  era  gave  to  bodily  force  an  im- 

fportance  far  beyond  anything  that  we  can  now 

Vconceive.      Rarely   has    so  much    civilization 

been  combined  with  so  little  protection  of  the 

law ;  rarely  have  men   of  such  cultivation  so 

often  taken  into  their  own  hands  the  righting 

/  of  their  wrongs.     It  is  but  natural  that  the 

/  foremost  sculptor  of  the  age  should  portray 

/    the   type  which   the    age  admired;   but  it  is 

I    fortunate  that  he  was  a  man  of  so  lofty  a  soul 

\  that  he  could  redeem  from  all  grossness  the 

]  enormous   brute  strength  which  he  delighted 

1  to  depict  and  make  it  the  vehicle  for  the  ex- 

\  pression  of  the  highest  thoughts.     By  giving 

\to  his  Titans  a  spirit  even  vaster  than  their 

bodies  he  has  created  a  type  of  art  that  has 

remained    unique,    immeasurable,    and    over- 

Iwhelming. 

is  exultation  of  Michelangelo  in  mere 
physical  force,  this  joy  in  iron  muscles  ready 
for  any  strain,  is  most  fully  exhibited  in  that 
cartoon  of  the  soldiers  bathing  in  the  Arno  and 
surprised  by  the  trumpet's  blast,  usually  called 
the  "  Battle  of  Pisa."  No  such  study  in  an- 
atomy, no  such  picture  of  the  male  body  in 


62  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

fullest  development,  no  such  group  of  intensely 
hurrying  athletes,  with  every  nerve  throbbing 
and  palpitating  with  life,  has  been  created  in 
modern  times,  perhaps  not  even  by  the  Greeks. 
Of  its  kind  it  is  perfect.  Exertion  is  carried 
exactly  to  the  point  that  it  should  not  over- 
pass. There  is  none  of  that  excess  so  peril- 
ously close  to  attitudinizing  and  contortion 
that  disfigures  the  "  Last  Judgment."  All  is 
instinct  with  intense  vitality,  yet  rhythmical 
and  harmonious.  Cellini  and  many  of  his  con- 
temporaries in  an  age  so  enamored  of  physical 
vigor  regarded  it  as  his  masterpiece.  It  has 
perished  now,  and  we  can  judge  it  only  by  the 
copies ;  but  we  know  that  their  estimate  must 
have  been  erroneous.  Masterly  as  it  was  as  an 
anatomical  study,  it  could  not  have  had  that 
lofty  spiritual  meaning  that  gives  to  the  gigan- 
tic shapes  that  adorn  the  Sistine's  vault  or 
brood  above  the  Medicean  tombs  their  everlast- 
ing interest.  Yet  it  is  not  surprising  that 
artists  should  have  esteemed  the  cartoon  so 
highly.  They  were  no  more  capable  than  the 
rest  of  us  of  grasping  the  sense  of  those  Titanic 
forms,  or  of  reading  the  secrets  of  their  troubled 


MICHELANGELO  63 

souls ;  but  the  cartoon  was  a  matchless  school 
of  design  where  all  the  secrets  of  the  human 
frame  stood  openly  revealed. 

Michelangelo  will  always  be  more  interesting- 
than  Raphael.  The  latter,  like  Tennyson,  was 
only  an  artist.  He  lived  in  and  for  his  art 
alone,  and  expressed  himself  completely  in  it. 
But  with  Michelangelo,  great  as  was  his  work, 
we  feel  that  the  man  was  greater  still.  Lofty 
as  is  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's,  terrible  as  is 
the  "  Moses,"  mournful  as  are  the  Medicean 
tombs,  we  feel  that  the  soul  of  Michelangelo  was 
loftier,  more  terrible,  more  mournful  than  them 
all.  It  is  a  rugged  greatness,  stern  and  unap- 
proachable ;  but  at  heart  he  is  kind  and  tender, 
filled  with  unspeakable  pity  for  the  miseries  of 
man,  with  burning  protest  against  his  wrongs. 
Though  beneath  his  touch  the  marble  quivers 
with  an  elemental  life,  and  on  the  barren  wall 
there  spring  into  being  forms  of  supernatural 
power,  we  feel  that  much  is  still  unuttered, 
that  within  that  prodigious  soul  there  are 
oceans  of  woe  and  whirlwinds  of  passion  too 
great  for  brush  or  chisel  to  articulate.  ^Ra- 
phael lived  in  an  ideal  world  that  was  all  his 


64  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

own,  serenely  indifferent  to  the  tempests  that 
were   raging   round.     With  Michelangelo  the 

Florentine  patriotism  and  devotion  to  liberty 

4F 

lose  even  above  his  love  for  art.     He  was  first 

S  man  and  then  an  artist,  and  he  was  a  part  of 
the  storm  and  stress  of  contemporary  life. 

If  Raphael  availed  himself  too  freely  of  the 
labors  of  others,  Michelangelo  went  to  the 
opposite  extreme  of  excluding  reasonable 
co-operation.  He  wore  himself  out  in  rough- 
hewing  the  marble  when  a  common  stone- 
cutter could  have  done  it  as  well ;  and  therefore, 
considering  the  duration  of  a  life  prolonged  to 
the  ninetieth  year  and  the  robust  health  which 
he  enjoyed,  the  amount  of  work  that  he  has 
left,  particularly  in  stone,  seems  limited,  and 
very  little  of  that  has  been  finished  in  every 
part.  Had  he  done  like  the  modern  sculptor, 
merely  making  a  figure  of  clay  and  leaving  to 
his  workmen  the  task  of  turning  it  into  a 
statue,  his  amazing  energy  and  inexhaustible 
fertility  would  have  enabled  him  to  fill  the 
world  with  masterpieces;  but  it  is  doubtful 
whether  any  of  them  would  have  had  upon 
their  brows  the  seal  of  supreme  greatness, 


MICHELANGELO  6$ 

whether  all  of  them  together  would  have  been 
worth  one  of  these  astounding  creations  sprung 
entirely  from  that  mighty  hand  and  that  tre- 
mendous brain.  Still  we  can  easily  conceive 
how  he  could  have  availed  himself  to  a  greater 
degree  of  the  services  of  others  in  doing  the 
rough  work  of  shaping  his  statues,  and  in  that 
way  have  doubled  his  artistic  production  with- 
out a  loss  of  power.  But  we  must  accept 
genius  with  its  limitations.  His  solitariness 
was  inseparable  from  his  greatness.  Like  the 
lion,  he  stalked  alone.  His  quarry  would  have 
been  larger  had  he  availed  himself  of  the  assist- 
ance of  the  jackals ;  but  they  were  hateful  in 
his  sight,  and  he  hunted  by  himself. 

In  our  own  days  we  have  seen  the  art  of 
music  culminate  in  a  genius  worthy  to  stand 
beside  Michelangelo,  and  have  beheld  his  death 
followed  by  a  decline  like  that  which  ensued 
when  the  mighty  Florentine  had  passed  away. 
A  few  years  ago,  when  Wagner  was  pouring 
out  his  prodigious  music-dramas,  it  was  felt 
that  at  last  the  true  dramatic  music  had  been 
discovered,  and  that  we  should  have  a  series 
of  great  operas  of  ever  increasing  power.  He 

5 


66  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

died,  and  there  fell  a  silence  so  profound  that 
the  slender  flute  of  Mascagni  resounded 
throughout  the  world. 

So  it  was  after  the  death  of  Michelangelo. 
Some  artists  went  to  the  other  extreme,  like  a 
relaxed  bow,  and  painted  pictures  of  sugared 
sweetness,  which  found  a  ready  popularity; 
but  the  majority  of  the  public,  having  become 
accustomed  to  the  grandeur  of  Michelangelo's 
style,  demanded  that  it  should  be  continued ; 
and  many  of  the  artists  themselves,  fascinated 
by  its  power  and  forgetting  their  own  limi- 
tations, strove  to  imitate  it.  The  pigmies, 
encumbered  by  the  giant's  armor,  rattled  pain- 
fully along,  stumbling  at  every  step.  Where 
he  was  dramatic,  they  were  theatrical ;  where  he 
was  vigorous,  they  were  hysterical  ;  where 
he  was  awful,  they  were  grotesque,  and  the 
almost  superhuman  power  of  the  master  be- 
came one  of  the  most  potent  influences  in  the 
decline  of  art. 

In  one  respect  Michelangelo  was  less  fortu- 
nate than  Wagner.  He  survived  his  genera- 
tion, to  sit  alone  like  Marius  upon  the  ruins  of 
Carthage,  brooding  over  the  desolation  and 


MICHELANGELO  6/ 

shrouded  in  the  gloom  of  the  descending  night. 
If  Wagner  has  had  no  successors,  he  at  least 
passed  away  surrounded  by  contemporaries 
worthy  of  his  genius  and  with  every  reason  to 
hope  that  music  would  take  yet  bolder  flights ; 
but  the  illustrious  artists  with  whom  Michel- 
angelo had  been  associated  preceded  him  to 
the  tomb,  and  he  lived  to  see  art  decline  from 
Raphael  to  Giovanni  Penni,  from  himself  to 
Baccio  Bandinelli,  and  to  stand  like  some 
glorious  mountain  whose  snowy  summit  still 
remains  bathed  in  sunlight  when  the  world 
all  around  lies  wrapped  in  shadow. 

Unhappily  the  progress  of  the  decline  is 
nowhere  more  plainly  visible  than  in  the  works 
of  Michelangelo  himself. 

At  the  outset  of  his  career  his  efforts  were 
directed  to  the  attainment  of  an  absolute  mas- 
tery over  the  human  body.  By  diligent  study 
of  the  living  model  and  continual  dissection  of 
the  dead  he  acquired  a  proficiency  in  artistic 
anatomy  that  has  never  been  paralleled,  and 
which  finds  its  supreme  expression  in  the  car- 
toon of  the  "  Battle  of  Pisa."  Nothing  has 
ever  surpassed  the  power  and  grace  of  these 


68  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

hurrying   athletes,    whose  movements    are  so 
varied,  so  rhythmic,  and  so  natural. 

But  when  he  had  reached  this  point  he  was 
not  content,  as  almost  any  other  artist  would 
have  been,  to  repeat  himself.     He  sought  still 
/higher   flights.     No  longer  satisfied  with  the 
(  mere  beauty  and  strength  of  the  body,  he  de- 
J  termined  to  make  it  the  vehicle  for  the  expres- 
A    sion  of  the  deepest  passions  and  the  loftiest 
v^aspirations  of  humanity.     A  technical  skill,  a 
perfect  knowledge,  which  others  would  have 
considered  an  end  in  themselves,   were  with 
him  only  the  beginning,  only  a  stepping-stone 
from  which  he  might  mount  to  higher  things. 
It  was  in  this  period  of  his  perfect  development 
that  he   produced   the   ceiling   of   the  Sistine 
Chapel,    the    "  Moses,"    and    the    Medicean 
tombs,    figures   that    are   still    almost,    if   not 
quite,  as  realistically  true  as  the  "  Pisan  Bat- 
tle," but  in  which  the  soul  utters  the  burden 
of  its  grandest  thoughts. 

/"But  with  the  "  Last  Judgment  "  the  decline 

[•.  /begins.     These  prodigious  figures,  with  their 

muscles   like   knotted    ropes,    their  surprising 

lattitudes,    their  amazing  foreshortenings,  are 


MICHELANGELO  69 

still  immensely  powerful,  but  they  pass  the 
modesty  of  nature.  The  era  of  mannerism 
has  set  in — it  is  no  longer  nature  that  the 
master  imitates,  but  himself,  and  his  strength 
has  become  exaggeration.  In  the  paintings  of 
the  Pauline  Chapel  the  end  has  come — the 
divine  fire  has  burnt  out — nature  has  been  for- 
gotten, and  mannerism  alone  remains. 

Yet  even  now,  when  he  has  lost  his  empire 
over  his  own  peculiar  domain  and  the  powers 
of  the  Titan  seem  exhausted,  he  invades 
another  field,  and,  designing  the  dome  of  St. 
Peter's,  so  prodigious  in  its  size,  so  harmonious 
in  its  proportions,  so  strong  and  yet  so  beauti- 
ful, he  achieves  the  grandest  triumph  of  modern 
architecture. 

Ages  have  passed,  but  he  still  remains  the 
greatest  name  in  art.  The  Greeks  have  none 
to  compare  with  him.  Phidias  was  only  a 
sculptor,  Ictinus  only  an  architect,  Apelles 
only  a  painter.  Michelangelo  was  a  sculptor 
by  profession,  and  with  extreme  reluctance 
did  he  take  up  the  brush,  but  only  to  project 
upon  the  Sistine's  vault  the  sublimest  forms 
that  painting  has  produced.  With  still  greater 


7<D  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

reluctance  he  took  up  the  compass,  but  only  to 

give  the  world  the  crowning  glory  of  St.  Peter's 

_dome.     As  painter,   architect,   or  sculptor  he 

has  had  no  superior,  and  in  his  supreme  mas- 

;    tery  of  the  three  he  stands  unapproached  and 

unapproachable. 


LEONARDO  DA  VINCI 
(1452-1519) 

IN  Venice  a  painter  was  usually  only  a  painter, 
a  sculptor  only  a  sculptor ;  but  in  Florence 
it  was  customary  for  the  same  man  to  practice 
all  the  arts.  Giotto  was  the  foremost  painter 
and  architect  of  his  day,  and  in  sculpture  he 
attained  no  mean  distinction.  And  such  was 
the  case  with  many  of  his  successors,  until  the 
school  culminated  in  Michelangelo,  who  stood 
pre-eminent  in  all. 

But  of  Florentine  versatility  Leonardo  is Jthe 
supreme  expression.  He  embraced  not  only 
all  the  arts,  but  all  the  sciences.  He  was  dis- 
tinguished as  a  military  and  civil  engineer,  as  a 
geologist,  geographer,  and  astronomer;  he  re- 
discovered the  principles  of  the  lever  and 
hydraulics ;  he  was  a  great  mathematician  and 
machinist,  an  anatomist,  a  physiologist,  and  a 
71 


?2  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

chemist.  He  invented  more  mechanical  de- 
vices than  any  man  that  ever  lived  unless  it  be 
Edison,  some  of  them  merely  wonderful  toys 
that  delighted  or  terrified  his  contemporaries, 
others  serviceable  implements  that  are  still  in 
use,  like  the  saws  employed  to-day  at  the  quar- 
ries of  Carrara,  or  the  hoisting  apparatus  with 
which  the  obelisks  of  London  and  New  York 
were  lifted  into  position.  He  designed  breech- 
loading  cannon,  and  demonstrated  the  advan- 
tages of  conical  bullets.  He  invented  the 
camera-obscura  and  boats  that  ran  with  wheels, 
and  foresaw  that  the  latter  could  be  propelled 
by  steam.  He  planned  the  great  works  of  en- 
gineering that  have  controlled  the  courses  of 
the  Arno  and  the  Po,  and  put  a  stop  to  their 
destructive  floods.  Not  content  to  walk  upon 
the  earth,  he  devoted  much  time  to  the  con- 
trivance of  a  flying-machine,  studying  the 
flight  of  birds,  and  trying  to  devise  an  instru- 
ment that  could  soar  on  extended  wings  above 
the  mountains. 

But    it   was   in   penetrating   the   secrets   of 
Nature  that  he  is   most  amazing.     She  who 

I  guards  her  secrets  so  carefully  from  us  all,  so 

I 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  73 

that  we  have  to  wrest  them  from  her  bit  by 
bit,  considering  ourselves  fortunate  if  after  a 
lifetime  of  toil  we  have  lifted  but  a  little  corner 
of  the  veil,  welcomed  him  to  her  bosom  with 
outstretched  arms,  and  whispered  into  his  ears 
her  most  hidden  mysteries.  He  walked  be- 
side the  sea,  and  he  understood  that  the  waters 
were  composed  of  countless  molecules.  He 
watched  the  billows  in  their  rhythmical  advance, 
and  he  comprehended  that  light  and  sound 
moved  onward  in  succeeding  waves.  He  trod 
the  mountain  summits,  and  he  knew  that  they 
had  been  the  bottom  of  the  ocean  when  the 
fossil  shells  had  been  deposited  there,  and  that 
they  had  since  been  raised  aloft.  He  looked 
into  the  heavens,  and  perceived  that  the  world 
was  not  the  centre  of  created  things,  forestall- 
ing the  discovery  of  Copernicus;  and  he  saw 
that  the  universe  was  held  together  by  the  at- 
traction of  gravitation.  He  gazed  at  the 
faintly  illumined  body  of  the  new  moon,  and 
divined  that  it  was  the  earth's  reflection  that 
lit  it  up.  He  loved  all  plants  and  animals,  and 
comprehended  their  structure  and  their  growth. 
He  knew  that  the  tides  obeyed  the  moon,  and 


74  RENAISSANCE   MASTERS 

that  the  waters  of  the  sea  must  rise  highest  at 
the  equator.  And  long  before  Bacon  was  born 
he  perceived  the  barrenness  of  the  scholastic 
philosophy,  and  laid  down  the  principles  of 
inductive  reasoning.  And  yet,  though  he  saw 
deeper  into  Nature  than  any  one  man  ever 
saw,  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  ever  took  the 
trouble  to  mention  his  discoveries  to  a  human 
being,  contenting  himself  to  set  them  down  in 
those  note-books  written  in  strange  characters 
running  from  right  to  left,  and  which  we  are 
now  only  beginning  to  decipher,  continually 
surprised  by  some  unexpected  flash  of  preter- 
natural insight,  and  saddened  to  find  that  many 
a  secret  that  we  have  since  wrested  from  Na- 
ture with  infinite  toil  was  known  to  him  and 
noted  in  his  memoranda;  while  other  notes 
which  now  seem  obscure  and  incomprehensible 
are  perhaps  only  revelations  of  a  penetration 
transcending  ours,  and  will  one  day  be  seen  to 
foreshadow  discoveries  the  most  profound. 

And  yet  science  was  only  the  diversion  of 
his  leisure  hours.  He  was  by  profession  an 
artist,  inscribing  himself  as  a  Florentine  painter, 
and  practicing  also  architecture  and  sculpture, 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  75 

poetry  and  music.  The  beauty  of  his  person 
fascinated  every  beholder,  while  the  charms  of 
his  eloquence  enchanted  every  ear;  and  in  ad- 
dition to  his  multifold  occupations  he  was  an 
accomplished  courtier,  the  best  swordsman  of 
his  time,  and  the  leader  of  the  brilliant  revels 
and  pageants  in  which  the  age  rejoiced. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  as  a  youth  in  Flor- 
ence he  was  courted  and  admired  as  youth  has 
never  been  since  the  days  of  Alcibiades,  or  that 
when  he  went  to  Milan  he  took  the  court  by 
storm.  As  he  appeared  before  the  duke  in  the 
strength  and  beauty  of  his  early  manhood  with 
his  hair  falling  in  luxurious  ringlets  below  his 
waist,  holding  in  his  hand  his  wonderful  lute 
that  he  had  fashioned  of  silver  in  the  likeness 
of  a  horse's  head  and  from  which  he  drew 
notes  sweeter  than  living  man  had  heard,  im- 
provising songs  accompanied  by  music  of  his 
own  composing,  sung  in  tones  of  richest  mel- 
ody, it  must  have  seemed  to  the  assembled 
courtiers  that  the  heavens  had  opened  and  that 
Apollo  Citharaedus  was  standing  in  their  midst. 

That  a  man  of  such  varied  occupations 
should  have  produced  little  in  art  is  not  sur- 


76  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

prising ;  but  that  that  little  should  be  so  per- 
fect is  astonishing,  so  rare  is  the  combination 
of  scientific  and  artistic  genius,  so  difficult  is  it 
to  look  into  the  essence  of  things  and  yet  be 
charmed  with  the  beauty  of  their  external 
forms.  Yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  among 
the  countless  works  produced  by  that  desire 
of  beauty  that  dwells  in  every  heart,  none 
rank  higher  than  the  few  that  we  owe  to  Leo- 
nardo's hand. 

Modern  criticism  has  done  a  great  deal  for 
the  reputation  of  the  masters.  It  has  freed 
them  from  responsibility  for  many  unworthy 
productions  ascribed  to  them  by  the  vanity 
and  self-interest  of  successive  owners.  But  in 
Leonardo's  case  the  result  is  in  the  highest 
degree  confusing.  A  few  years  ago  the  Euro- 
pean galleries  numbered  many  pictures  con- 
ceded to  his  brush.  The  critics  began  their 
work  of  demolition,  and  there  are  no  two  whose 
lists  agree ;  while  of  the  numerous  paintings 
once  attributed  to  him  only  the  cartoon  of  the 
Royal  Academy,  the  "  Mona  Lisa"  and  the 
decaying  fresco  of  the  "  Last  Supper"  are 
admitted  by  all  to  be  authentic.  His  works 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  77 

are  the  field  where  the  modern  criticism  that 
has  done  so  much  for  art  is  most  vulnerable  to 
the  ridicule  of  its  enemies.  Still  the  doubt  as 
to  the  genuineness  of  the  paintings  accredited 
to  him  does  not  greatly  detract  from  their 
value  as  an  insight  into  the  character  of  his 
style.  If  not  from  his  hand  they  are  from 
craftsmen  of  his  school,  and  in  his  genius  their 
inspiration  must  be  sought. 

Fecundity  is  almost  an  essential  element  of 
greatness.  It  is  scarcely  possible  for  a  single 
work,  however  perfect,  to  entitle  its  author  to 
a  seat  among  the  mighty — witness  Gray's  Elegy 
and  Poe's  Raven  ;  and  it  is  doubtful  whether 
any  other  man  so  deficient  in  fecundity  as 
Leonardo  was  ever  numbered  with  the  greatest. 
Yet  no  voice  has  been  lifted  to  dispute  his  rank 
among  the  master  spirits  of  all  time. 

J$y  what  qualities  has  Leonardo  been  raised 
to  this  pre-eminence  ?  Tojp_egin  with,  he  was 
the  first  perfect  painter  among  the  moderns. 
Compared  with  him,  his  predecessors  are  all 
primitives.  Between  their  art  and  his  there 
yawns  an  immense  chasm.  They  are  striving 
with  doubtful  success  to  give  tangible  form  to 


?8  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

simple  ideas;  he  bodies  forth  with  consummate 
power  thoughts  too  subtle  and  profound  for 
vocal  utterance.  Childlike  and  sincere,  their 
vision  ranges  over  a  narrow  field,  and  depicts 
imperfectly  the  things  that  it  beholds;  while 
his  powerful  mind  grasps  the  most  hidden 
secrets  of  Nature  and  of  the  human  heart,  and 
his  wizard  fingers  transfer  them  to  the  canvas 
with  unerring  skill.  They  are  still  mediaeval, 
while  he  is  modern,  belonging  not  to  the  past 
but  to  our  own  and  all  succeeding  generations, 
one  of  those  marvellous  geniuses  who  outrun 
their  time,  like  Omar  Khayyam  questioning 
the  Deity  among  the  blind  followers  of  Ma- 
homet, or  like  Shakespeare  writing  the  solilo- 
quies of  Hamlet.  In  passing  to  his  works  from 
those  of  the  most  illustrious  of  his  predecessors 
we  perceive  none  of  that  gradual  transition  that 
we  usually  meet.  Their  art  is  an  attempt — his 
the  perfection  of  achievement.  They  are 

^JLtui^C^ 

fascinating  by  their  immaturity,  he  by  the 
plenitude  of  his  power.  They  are  suggestive 
because  we  seek  to  realize  what  they  were  try- 

•^***f$^*-%+*-*4. 

ing  to  express;  he  is  infinitely  more  so  because 
he  represents  more  than  our  minds  can  seize. 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  79 

Of  all  artists  Giotto  alone  has  so  far  outleaped 
the  men  who  went  before.  In  the  singular 
letter  which  Leonardo  wrote  to  the  Duke 
of  Milan  in  his  youth  he  said,  "  In  painting  I 
can  do  what  can  be  done  as  well  as  any  man, 
be  he  who  he  may,"  and  his  boast  stands  as 
good  now  as  on  the  day  when  it  was  made. 
The  first  of  the  great  triumvirate  of  art  in  point 
ofjime,  he  remains  the  most  modern  in  the 
spirit  of  his  work.  We  feel  that  he  was  familiar 
with  all  the  thoughts  that  haunt  us  now,  per- 
haps with  some  that  will  only  come  to  our  re- 
mote descendants.  He  was  the  first  modern 
artist  in  whom  absolute  technical  skill  and  a 
great  creative  mind  went  hand  in  hand,  and  in 
neither  respect  has  he  ever  been  surpassed. 

To  Leonardo  also  must  be  accorded  the 
supreme  glory  of  being  the  first  modern  to  in- 
vent grandeur  of  style.  Before  his  day  there  / 
were  strong  and  beautiful  pictures,  but  the 
"  Last  Supper  "  was  the  first  that  was  truly 
grand.  And  it  is  the  genuine  grandeur  which 
depends  not  on  largeness  of  dimensions,  but 
which  arises  from  the  harmonious  combination 
of  nobility  and  simplicity,  and  shines  forth  in 


80  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

the  smallest  woodcut  of  the  immortal  work. 
Every  line  of  the  majestic  composition,  how- 
ever reduced  in  size,  is  marked  by  a  grandeur 
which  was  a  revelation  to  his  contemporaries, 
and  for  the  like  of  which  they  had  to  return  to 
the  shattered  marbles  of  Greece. .1  The  picture 
reminds  one  of  Handel's  music,  which  can  be 
properly  rendered  only  by  a  mighty  organ  or  a 
full  orchestra,  and  yet  whose  simple  grandeur 
is  apparent  when  it  is  played  upon  a  flute.  Its 
painting  was  like  the  discovery  of  some  majes- 
tic harmony  in  nature  of  which  men  had  never 
dreamed.  In  these  thirteen  figures  seated  at  a 
table  in  a  bare  room  with  windows  outlooking 
upon  an  extended  prospect  there  is  a  dignity, 
an  elevation,  a  majesty  that  came  as  an  aston- 
ishment to  the  world ;  while  in  the  varied  yet 
harmonious  arrangement  of  the  several  groups, 
the  full  capacities  of  composition  were  first 
disclosed.  When  the  picture  was  completed  it 
was  hailed  as  the  masterpiece  of  painting,  and 
succeeding  ages  have  but  joined  in  the  acclaim. 
From  Uggione's  great  copy  in  the  Royal 
Academy  to  the  cheapest  print  that  adorns  the 
humblest  cottage  every  reproduction  of  it  con- 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  8 1 

veys  some  impression  of  the  grandeur  of  the 
original  which,  faded,  repainted,  and  defaced, 
still  charms  us  by  the  majesty  of  its  shadowy 
outlines.  If  Leonardo  had  produced  nothing 
else,  his  title  to  rank  with  the  greatest  could 
never  be  gainsaid.  Grandeur  of  style  is  the 
highest  merit  that  a  work  of  art  can  possess, 
and  of  that  supreme  distinction  he  is  the  in- 
ventor. Had  he  never  lived  it  might  have 
been  discovered  by  Michelangelo  or  Raphael; 
but  who  can  say  that  without  the  "  Last  Sup- 
per "  we  should  ever  have  had  the  "  Creation 
of  Man  "  or  the  "  School  of  Athens  "  ?  Had 
Columbus  never  sailed  upon  the  Western  seas 
another  might  have  planted  his  foot  upon 
America's  shores;  but  the  glory  of  the  dis- 
covery is  justly  his;  and  we  cannot  determine 
with  certainty  what  Raphael  and  Michelangelo 
would  have  done  had  not  Leonardo  taught 
them  how  such  miracles  are  wrought. 

No  man  ever  had  such  a  mastery  of  facial 
expression.  In  portraying  the  human  counte- 
nance he  has  the  same  undisputed  supremacy 
that  Michelangelo  possesses  in  dealing  with 
the  human  form.  He  looked  quite  through 

6 


82  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

the  souls  of  men,  and  fixed  them  on  his  sketch- 
book or  the  canvas  with  unequalled  skill.  No 
expression  is  too  violent  or  too  grotesque  to  be 
depicted  there,  none  too  delicate  or  too  evanes- 
cent. He  understood  the  whole  gamut  of 
human  feelings,  the  fiercest  passions,  the  most 
fleeting  sensations.  His  whole  life  was  a  study 
of  the  faces  that  he  met,  and  the  exquisite  re- 
finement and  accuracy  of  his  drawing  enabled 
him  to  fasten  forever  the  surging  frenzy  of  the 
storm  or  the  shade  that  passed  over  the  face  for 
a  moment  like  the  shadow  of  a  summer  cloud. 

When  occasion  required,  the  meaning  could 
be  plain  and  comprehensible  at  a  glance,  as  in 
the  "  Last  Supper,"  where  were  to  be  seen  all 
the  manifestations  of  horror  and  amazement 
exhibited  by  strong  men  as  Christ  uttered  the 
words,  "  One  of  you  shall  betray  me."  In 
the  "  Battle  of  Anghiari,"  or  the  "  Battle  of 
the  Standard,"  as  it  is  commonly  called,  the 
first  great  battle  piece  of  modern  times,  we 
have  every  aspect  of  rage  and  fury  of  which 
the  countenance  of  man  or  beast  was  ever 
capable. 

Nowhere  can  we  better  contrast  Leonardo, 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  83 

Michelangelo,  and  Raphael  than  in  their  three 
great  battle  pieces.  In  Raphael's  "  Battle  of 
Constantine  "  we  are  attracted  by  the  harmony 
and  rhythm  of  the  contending  masses,  the 
beauty  of  the  composition,  the  pomp,  pride, 
and  circumstance  of  glorious  war.  In  Michel- 
angelo's "  Battle  of  Pisa  "it  is  the  muscular 
development  of  the  hurrying  athletes.  But 
with  Leonardo  it  is  the  psychological  interest 
—  the  unspeakable  rage  of  the  struggling 
soldiers.  His  ancestors  had  known  nothing 
of  real  war.  The  contests  of  the  Italian  mer- 
cenaries were  little  more  than  jousts  and  tour- 
neys, where  fatalities  were  rare.  But  in  his 
day  the  French,  Germans,  and  Spaniards  had 
made  Italy  the  battle-ground  of  Europe,  and 
had  shown  its  inhabitants  how  war  was  carried  A/ 
on  by  the  barbarians  across  the  Alps.  Leo- 
nardo beheld  it,  and  it  seemed  to  him,  in  his 
own  words,  a  most  bestial  frenzy.  As  such  he 
has  depicted  it,  and  beside  his  masterpiece  all 
other  representations  of  the  rage  of  battle  are 
weak  and  tame.  The  insane  fury,  the  fiendish 
hunger  for  blood  that  has  changed  the  combat- 
ants into  wild  beasts  having  only  the  outward 


84  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

semblance  of  humanity  extends  even  to  the 
horses,  which  fight  savagely,  tearing  each  other 
with  their  teeth  with  all  the  ferocity  of  tigers. 
There  is  nothing  glorious  here — all  is  fierce, 
realistic,  horrible,  the  truest,  strongest,  most 
merciless  picture  of  the  human  brute  ravening 
for  slaughter  that  has  ever  been  drawn.  In 
Raphael's  painting  we  see  war  as  it  looks  to 
the  leaders  from  afar;  in  Michelangelo's,  war 
as  it  appears  to  the  soldiers  preparing  for  the 
conflict;  while  Leonardo  gives  us  war  as  it  is 
in  fact,  in  all  its  nameless  horror. 

Leonardo's  cartoon,  like  Michelangelo's,  has 
disappeared,  and  we  know  it  only  by  the 
copies ;  but  in  his  Treatise  on  Painting  he  gives 
us  the  best  description  of  the  appearance  of  a 
battle  that  has  ever  been  penned,  and  as  we 
know  that  he  had  the  power  to  body  forth 
every  vision  of  his  teeming  brain,  we  have  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  all  the  smoke  and  dust, 
the  confusion,  the  frenzy  and  despair  of  which 
he  speaks  were  to  be  seen  in  this  cartoon. 
Even  as  it  has  come  down  to  us  it  stands  un- 
rivalled as  a  representation  of  war  in  its  psy- 
chological significance. 


LEONARDO   DA    VINCI  85 

But  while  Leonardo  thus  excelled  all  others 
in  depicting  the  violent  passions  of  men,  he 
delighted  most  in  delineating  faces  of  a  charm 
so  delicate  and  subtle  that  they  remain  as 
fathomless  as  those  Alpine  lakes  whose  smiling 
surface  conceals  abysmal  depths.  Upon  most 
of  them  there  is  that  strange  smile  extend- 
ing no  further  than  the  lips  which  he  inherited 
from  his  master  Verrocchio,  but  which  beneath 
his  magic  touch  changed  from  a  pleasing  smirk 
to  a  thing  of  profound  and  fascinating  mystery. 

It  is  seen  in  its  perfection  on  the  lips  of  the 
"  Mona  Lisa,"  that  marvellous  portrait  which 
Francis  I.  purchased  at  a  price  then  almost  un- 
heard of,  and  whose  riddle  succeeding  genera- 
tions have  striven  in  vain  to  read.  In  the 
Louvre  she  is  still  sitting,  and  every  passer  is 
constrained  to  stop,  lured  by  that  smile  as  by 
a  siren's  song,  vainly  demanding  why  she 
smiles  and  with  what  intent.  Has  she  ex- 
hausted all  the  possibilities  of  pain  and  joy ; 
has  she  wandered  through  the  streets  of  Sodom 
and  by  the  waters  of  Damascus ;  has  she  hung 
her  harp  upon  the  willows  of  Babylon  ;  has  she 
danced  with  Messalina  and  supped  with  Nero; 


86  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

and  does  she  smile  to  behold  our  innocence  ? 
Has  she  sat  with  Apollo  beside  the  Castalian 
stream,  and  is  she  still  listening  to  the  Muses' 
song  ?  Is  she  thinking  of  her  liege  lord  Gio- 
condo,  or  dreaming  of  some  guilty  love  ?  Is 
it  good  or  evil  that  is  in  those  haunting  eyes 
and  on  those  smiling  lips  ?  Perhaps  Walter 
Pater,  whose  peculiar  and  super-refined  genius 
brings  him  very  close  to  Leonardo,  has  best 
divined  her  meaning: 

"  The  presence  that  thus  rose  so  strangely 
beside  the  waters,  is  expressive  of  what  in  the 
ways  of  a  thousand  years  man  had  come  to 
desire.  Hers  is  the  head  upon  which  all  '  the 
ends  of  the  world  are  come/  and  the  eyelids 
are  a  little  weary.  It  is  a  beauty  wrought  out 
from  within  upon  the  flesh,  the  deposit,  little 
cell  by  cell,  of  strange  thoughts  and  fantastic 
reveries  and  exquisite  passions.  Set  it  for  a 
moment  beside  one  of  those  white  Greek  god- 
desses or  beautiful  women  of  antiquity,  and 
how  would  they  be  troubled  by  this  beauty 
into  which  the  soul  with  all  its  maladies  has 
passed  ?  All  the  thoughts  and  experience  of 
the  world  have  etched  and  moulded  there,  in 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  8? 

that  which  they  have  of  power  to  refine  and 
make  expressive  the  outward  form,  the  animal- 
ism of  Greece,  the  lust  of  Rome,  the  reverie  of 
the  middle  age  with  its  spiritual  ambition  and 
imaginative  loves,  the  return  of  the  Pagan 
world,  the  sins  of  the  Borgias.  She  is  older 
than  the  rocks  among  which  she  sits ;  like  the 
vampire,  she  has  been  dead  many  times,  and 
learned  the  secrets  of  the  grave ;  and  has  been 
a  diver  in  deep  seas,  and  keeps  their  fallen  day 
about  her ;  and  trafficked  for  strange  webs  with 
Eastern  merchants ;  and,  as  Leda,  was  the 
mother  of  Helen  of  Troy,  and,  as  Saint  Anne, 
the  mother  of  Mary ;  and  all  this  has  been  to 
her  but  as  the  sound  of  lyres  and  flutes,  and 
lives  only  in  the  delicacy  with  which  it  has 
moulded  the  changing  lineaments,  and  tinged 
the  eyelids  and  the  hands."  * 

Many  others  have  sought  to  read  her  riddle, 
but  she  remains  the  most  insoluble  of  mysteries, 
and  pursues  us  with  a  haunting  power  pos- 
sessed by  no  other  work  save  perhaps  the  "  Mel- 
ancholia "  of  Albert  Pjir^r. 

And  this  same  charm  is  in  the  faces  of  all 

*  The  Renaissance,  p.  134. 


88  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

his  women,  in  those  Madonnas  which  are  so 
fascinating  as  revelations  of  subtlest  woman- 
hood, and  in  his  countless  sketches  of  female 
heads.  No  man  has  ever  penetrated  so  deeply 
into  woman's  heart,  none  has  ever  felt  so 
strongly  the  enchantment  of  the  eternal 
womanly,  or  transferred  it  to  canvas  with  such 
consummate  skill. 

He  is  not  a  lover  of  physical  beauty.  His 
types,  if  robbed  of  the  charm  of  expression 
that  transfigures  them,  would  rarely  be  beauti- 
ful at  all.  His  is  a  beauty  that  works  from 
within  outward,  which  existed  in  the  soul  be- 
fore it  manifested  itself  in  the  face.  Take  it 
away,  and  the  features  attract  no  more — some- 
times they  would  be  merely  commonplace, 
more  frequently  they  would  be  simply  strange. 

It  is  not  all  beauty  that  is  suited  to  artistic 
treatment.  Many  exquisitely  beautiful  women 
are  fit  only  for  the  adornment  of  a  fashion  plate 
— they  lack  that  nameless  distinction  which  a 
picture  must  possess  to  be  classed  as  art.  This 
fashion-plate  beauty  made  no  appeal  to  Leo- 
nardo. He  did  not  even  value  it  at  its  worth. 
The  only  beauty  that  he  cared  for  was  the 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  89 

purely  artistic  beauty,  beauty  so  thoroughly 
artistic  that  only  the  elect  can  realize  the  full 
extent  of  its  subtle  fascination. 

It  is  everywhere  in  Leonardo's  genuine 
work,  in  the  "  Mona  Lisa,"  in  the  Academy 
cartoon,  in  the  "  Madonna  of  the  Rocks  "  of 
the  National  Gallery,  in  "  La  Vierge  aux 
Rochers  "  and  the  "  St.  Anne  "  of  the  Louvre. 
Deprived  of  the  refined,  sensitive  soul  that 
shines  through  their  eyes  and  quivers  on  their 
lips  they  would  be  plain  enough ;  but  he  who 
is  insensible  to  their  enthralling  magic  may 
well  despair  of  ever  comprehending  art  in  its 
most  exquisite  manifestations. 

Leonardo's  figures  are  the  most  spiritual  ' 
that  have  ever  been  drawn.  Beside  them 
Michelangelo's  are  only  athletes,  Raphael's 
only  innocents  upon  whose  unstained  brows 
sorrow  and  sin  and  love  and  hate  have  set  no 
mark.  Leonardo's  have  lived  this  life  and 
drunk  its  cup  of  joy  and  anguish  to  the  lees — 
lived  it  with  minds  intensely  active  and  nerves 
vibrating  to  passion's  every  thrill,  and  it  is 
with  their  souls  that  they  have  lived — souls 
that  have  trembled  with  rapture  and  quivered 


9O  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

with  pain,  and  which  have  learned  the  lesson 
that  their  lives  could  teach.  But  they  are  not 
spiritual  in  the  sense  of  religious.  He  was  not 
a  saintly  man,  and  Vasari  says  in  his  firsc  edi- 
tion, probably  not  without  reason,  that  he  was 
an  unbeliever.  But  in  humanity  it  was  the 
spiritual  essence  that  concerned  him  and  not 
the  fleshly  envelope. 

Of  all  artists  he  was  the  greatest  anatomist, 
unless  it  be  Michelangelo.  But  how  differently 
they  studied  and  for  what  different  ends! 
Michelangelo  studied  anatomy  only  to  see  what 
he  could  do  with  the  human  frame  as  a  means 
of  artistic  expression.  Leonardo  investigated 
it  as  a  scientific  fact,  and  competent  judges 
declare  that  his  anatomical  drawings  are  the 
most  accurate  that  have  ever  been  made. 
Michelangelo  loved  the  body,  and  rejoiced  to 
portray  its  strength  and  beauty.  Leonardo 
painted  no  nude  figure  save  the  "  Leda," 
which  has  disappeared,  and  even  there  it  was 
the  expression  of  the  face  that  struck  the  be- 
holder, not  the  beauty  of  the  form;  and  his 
sketches  and  drawings  of  the  nude  are  hasty 
and  defective.  It  was  in  the  face  that  his  art 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  91 

was  centred,  in  the  representation  of  the  soul 
shining  through  mortal  lineaments.  Perhaps 
no  one  was  ever  so  exclusively  a  painter  of  the 
soul. 

And  as  usual,  exclusive  devotion  met  with 
its  reward.  He  caught  the  soul  in  the  mo- 
ments when  it  seems  most  hidden  to  mortal 
sight,  when  it  was  listening  to  the  music  of  the 
spheres,  when  it  was  wandering  among  dreams 
of  unspeakable  raptures  and  impossible  sins, 
when  it  strayed  with  the  women  of  Gomorrah 
or  sat  by  the  waters  of  Lethe. 

No  man  ever  painted  faces  of  such  subtle 
charm  or  of  so  unsearchable  a  meaning;  and 
as  we  stand  before  them  we  are  impelled  to  in- 
quire whether  they  were  mysteries  also  to  him, 
or  whether  those  penetrating  eyes  of  his  which 
saw  so  deeply  into  Nature's  secrets  could  also 
read  their  strange  enigmas.  To  us  they  remain 
as  inscrutable  as  they  are  fascinating,  and  be- 
cause their  riddle  remains  unread  they  haunt 
us  yet  with  their  inscrutable  smile. 

There  are  no  women  whom  men  could  love 
like  Leonardo's,  and  none  perchance  whose 
love  would  be  so  dangerous.  Age  could  not 


Q2  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

wither  them,  nor  custom  stale  their  infinite 
variety.  Their  empire  would  not  be  based 
upon  the  passing  attractions  of  the  flesh,  but 
upon  all  that  is  subtle  and  alluring  in  the  soul 
of  woman.  With  the  witchery  of  their  smile 
they  could  change  their  lovers  into  brutes  or 
lift  them  into  heroes.  They  would  be  forever 
new  because  the  shadowy  depths  of  their  being 
could  never  be  sounded,  and  leaden-eyed 
Satiety  would  not  wait  upon  their  multiform 
caresses.  They  might  be  the  sirens,  the  lamias, 
the  vampires  of  old;  they  might  be  Lais  or 
Cleopatra;  to  their  subtle  genius  all  things 
would  be  possible,  and  the  man  who  fell  be- 
neath the  magic  of  their  spell  would  find  re- 
lease in  death  alone.  When  his  soul  was  once 
caught  in  the  witchery  of  that  mysterious 
smile  or  in  the  shining  meshes  of  those  locks 
waving  in  uncontrolled  luxuriance  or  bound  in 
intricate  braids  above  the  arching  brows,  it 
might  struggle  as  a  butterfly  in  the  web,  but 
never  could  it  burst  its  bonds. 

But  it  was  not  alone  in  the  grandeur  of  his 
style  or  in  his  unequalled  capacity  to  delineate 
the  varying  expressions  of  the  human  counte- 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  93 

nance  that  Leonardo  advanced  beyond  his  pred- 
ecessors ;  no  man  has  ever  made  greater 
changes  in  the  technic  of  painting.  Before 
his  day  men  were  content  with  line  and  color 
as  the  means  of  artistic  utterance.  He  was 
the  first  to  perceive  that  light  and  shade  were 
equally  important,  and  were— capable  of  pro- 
ducing the  most  poetical  and  illusive  effects. 
He  did  not  invent  chiaroscuro,  but  he  was  the  / 
first  to  handle  it  as  a  master.  In  his  pictures 
lights  and  shadows  are  treated  with  all  the 
truth  of  nature,  and  they  are  full  of  bewitching 
loveliness,  of  mystery  and  charm.  His  chiar- 
oscuro is  not  brilliant  like  Correggio's,  it  is  not 
full  of  luminous  splendor  like  that  of  Rem- 
brandt; but  it  is  deep  and  true.  He  experi- 
mented much  with  pigments,  and  as  the  effect 
of  time  upon  them  could  only  be  determined 
with  the  lapse  of  years,  he  fell  into  errors  never 
sufficiently  to  be  deplored,  which  have  lost  for 
us  the  "  Last  Supper  "  and  the  portion  of  the 
"  Battle  of  the  Standard  "  that  was  executed 
upon  the  wall,  and  whose  effects  are  only  too 
visible  in  all  his  works.  To  deepen  his  shadows 
he  painted  upon  a  sombre  groundwork,  and  ,/£ 


94  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

the  pigment  of  this  having  come  through,  it 
has  darked  all  his  pictures.  The  wonderful 
flesh  tints  of  the  "  Mona  Lisa"  which  filled 
Vasari  with  admiration  have  disappeared,  and 
it  is  only  with  difficulty  that  we  can  distin- 
guish the  fantastic  rocks  and  meandering 
streams  that  fill  the  background.  To  convince 
ourselves  that  this  darkening  is  not  essential  to 
the  most  perfect  light  and  shade  we  need  only 
turn  to  the  other  wall  of  the  Salon  Carr6  on 
which  hangs  Correggio's  "  Jupiter  and  An- 
tiope,"  still  as  bright  as  on  the  day  when  it 
left  the  painter's  hand.  But  as  Raphael  and 
Michelangelo  learned  from  Leonardo  the 
grandeur  of  their  style,  so  Correggio  owes  to 
him  the  bewitching  charm  of  his  chiaroscuro. 

Some  complain  of  Leonardo  that  he  enticed 
men  from  the  pleasant  paths  of  primitive  art 
so  that  after  him  it  was  impossible  to  paint 
with  the  old  simple  directness.  The  observa- 
tion is  just,  but  the  reproach  unfounded.  No 
work  can  combine  every  merit,  and  every  gain 
implies  a  corresponding  loss.  There  can  be 
no  increase  of  power  without  some  loss  of  deli- 
cacy, and  what  we  gain  in  depth  we  lose  in 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  95 

simplicity.  A  man  who  innovated  so  much  as 
Leonardo,  who  converted  the  works  of  his  pred- 
ecessors into  relics  of  the  past,  and  lifted  art 
to  a  higher  and  a  broader  plane,  necessarily 
bore  it  away  from  many  a  sweet  dell  where  at 
times  we  still  delight  to  linger;  but  his  services 
were  none  the  less  conspicuous.  He  did 
nothing  to  degrade  art ;  he  only  exalted  it  to 
a  perfection  where  certain  charming  qualities 
of  the  delicious  primitives  became  impossible ; 
and  if  their  pictures  grow  brighter  and  mellower 
with  time  while  his  have  steadily  darkened, 
that  is  due  to  the  accidental  use  of  unsatisfac- 
tory pigments  and  to  the  absence  in  their 
works  of  those  delicate  gradations  of  light  and 
shade  so  essential  to  artistic  truth. 

Nature  never  loved  a  son  as  she  loved 
Leonardo,  and  to  none  other  has  she  opened 
her  bosom  with  such  unreserve.  And  he  re- 
turned her  love  with  an  equal  devotion.  She 
was  his  sole  monitor,  his  only  example.  To 
her  he  went  in  all  his  perplexities ;  from  her  he 
gathered  every  truth.  While  his  contempo- 
raries were  all  powerfully  affected  by  the  re- 
mains of  antique  art,  for  him  it  did  not  exist. 


96  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

Only  once  in  his  Treatise  on  Painting  does  he 
mention  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  then 
not  as  objects  of  artistic  imitation.  The  plas- 
tic beauty  of  form  and  feature  that  they  ad- 
mired meant  nothing  for  him ;  the  mysterious 
beauty  of  the  soul  for  which  he  sought  would 
have  been  incomprehensible  to  them.  Amidst 
the  countless  faces  that  his  sketch-books  have 
preserved  there  is  perhaps  not  one  of  classic 
purity  of  outline.  Neither  are  they  mediaeval, 
like  Botticelli's.  They  are  modern — or,  rather, 
they  belong  to  all  ages  where  the  soul  of  man 
suffers  and  pants  and  yearns  and  is  rejoiced. 

But  though  Leonardo  turns  so  persistently 
to  Nature,  he  was  not  a  realist.  He  was  never 
content  with  commonplace  ugliness.  He 
sought  to  penetrate  Nature's  remotest  con- 
fines and  pluck  the  rarest  and  most  delicate 
flowers  that  blossom  there  unseen  by  common 
eyes.  He  was  a  seeker  after  things  that  are 
beautiful  and  exotic,  the  exquisite  orchids,  fed 
by  the  air  and  the  dew,  that  bloom  in  life's 
tangled  garden.  It  is  Nature  that  attracts 
him,  but  it  is  Nature  in  her  most  refined  and 
subtlest  revelations. 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  97 

His  devotion  to  Nature  is  apparent  not  only 
in  his  studies  of  the  human  countenance, 
but  in  his  treatment  of  every  leaf  and  flower. 
He  paints  them  with  a  skill,  a  tenderness,  an 
accuracy,  which  reveal  not  merely  his  botanical 
knowledge,  but  his  affection.  He  loved  all 
living  things,  and  he  would  spend  large  sums 
in  buying  birds  that  he  might  open  their  cages 
and  watch  them  fly  away.  In  his  long  study 
for  Sforza's  statue  he  acquired  the  most 
thorough  comprehension  of  the  anatomy  and 
movements  of  the  horse  that  any  man  has  ever 
possessed,  and  he  was  so  attached  to  his  horses 
that  in  the  moments  of  his  greatest  adversity 
nothing  could  induce  him  to  part  with  them. 
His  fondness  extended  even  to  inanimate 
nature,  particularly  when  it  manifested  itself 
in  unusual  forms;  and  he  paints  his  fantastic 
rocks  with  the  same  care  as  his  Madonna's 
smile. 

One  of  the  things  that  he  loved  most  was 
human  hair.  His  own  was  the  admiration  of 
his  contemporaries,  and  he  loved  hair  in  all  its 
multifold  shapes  and  varying  colors,  and 
painted  it  with  an  unequalled  patience  of  de- 

7 


98  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

tail,. so  that  each  gleaming  thread  is  distinctly 
seen.  It  appears  to  fascinate  him,  and  he 
represents  it  in  every  conceivable  way,  now 
freely  flowing,  now  arranged  in  intricate  de- 
signs of  marvellous  conception. 

And  to  the  same  love  of  Nature  we  owe  that 
interest  in  all  things  strange  and  curious  that 
seems  to  have  been  the  strongest  passion  of 
his  life.  Rare  plants  and  flowers,  singular  ani- 
mals,— above  all,  fantastic  rocks  such  as  haunt 
the  dreams  of  poets,  and  unusual  faces,  having 
in  them  something  extraordinary,  whether  of 
ugliness  or  beauty,  had  for  him  a  resistless 
charm.  Insects  and  reptiles  of  the  most  hid- 
eous aspect,  countenances  the  most  grotesque 
and  repulsive,  allured  him  as  much  as  forms  of 
benignity  and  grace.  He  would  gather  rude 
peasants  about  him  and  excite  them  to  laugh- 
ter by  unseemly  jests  that  he  might  fix  upon 
his  note-book  their  bestial  mirth.  He  would 
stand  beside  the  dying  criminal,  and  watch 
him  writhing  in  the  agony  of  the  execution ; 
or  he  would  follow  a  crippled  beggar  that  he 
might  preserve  the  record  of  his  deformity. 
All  that  was  abnormal,  all  that  was  strange  and 


LEONARDO  DA   VINCI  99 

curious,  had  for  him  an  attraction  in  no  way 
dependent  on  its  inherent  worth. 

His  fondness  for  strange  things  is  also  mani- 
fested in  that  fashion  of  writing  from  right  to 
left,  which  makes  his  manuscripts  so  difficult 
to  decipher  that  a  great  part  of  them  still  re- 
tain their  secrets.  Some  writers  have  accounted 
for  it  by  those  wanderings  through  the  East 
which  his  papers  seem  to  put  beyond  question, 
though  Vasari  knew  nothing  of  them;  but 
many  have  travelled  there  without  that  result. 
Others,  again,  explain  it  by  the  fact  that  he 
was  left-handed ;  but  the  world  is  full  of  left- 
handed  men  who  still  write  in  the  normal  man- 
ner. It  could  only  have  been  a  part  of  that 
seeking  after  strange  things  that  was  an  es- 
sential element  of  his  genius. 

Was  it  this  same  love  of  Nature  that  caused 
him  to  paint  St.  John  as  a  smiling  faun  such 
as  thronged  the  forests  when  Greece  was 
young  ?  A  face  closer  to  Nature  in  her  smiling 
moods  it  would  be  difficult  to  find.  He  is  one 
of  the  joyous  children  of  universal  Pan,  such  a 
face  as  we  should  look  to  see  peering  out  of 
the  thicket  in  spring  when  a  bird  is  singing  on 


IOO  RENAISSANCE   MASTERS 

every  bough  and  every  bramble  is  a  mass  of 
flowers.  He  is  not  the  pale  anchorite  of  the 
desert,  the  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness.  He 
is  not  even  Christian.  By  a  kinship  of  soul, 
by  the  same  love  for  the  beauty  of  woodland 
nature,  Leonardo  has  returned  unconsciously 
to  the  early  pagan  spirit,  and  has  created  a 
type  which  is  perhaps  the  most  profoundly 
pagan  of  any  that  we  possess;  and  the  pupil 
who  has  taken  the  same  conception,  crowned 
it  with  vine-leaves  and  converted  it  into  the 
beautiful  "  Bacchus  "  that  sits  in  the  Louvre 
beside  the  "  St.  John  ' '  had  a  truer  sense  of  the 
character  of  the  work. 

Leonardo    is    the    most    thoughtful    of    all 
painters  unless  it  be  Albert  Durer.     The  mind 
and    its    infinite    suggestions    are    his    realm. 
.!  With  Raphael  it  is  beauty  and  harmony,  with 

Michelangelo  it  is  passion  and  strength,  with 
him  it  is  thought  and  feeling — thought  so  deep 
that  voice  can  never  utter  it,  feelings  so  sensi- 
tively delicate,  so  preternaturally  refined  that 
they  elude  our  grasp;  and  he  is  full  of  all 
sorts  of  curious  questionings,  of  intricate  ca- 
prices mingled  with  sublime  conceptions.  No 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  IOI 

mind  of  power  so  versatile  and  penetrating 
was  ever  devoted  to  artistic  effort.  The  time 
that  he  spent  in  scientific  investigation  has 
been  regretted,  but  it  was  not  lost,  even  to 
art.  Had  he  been  less  intent  to  know  the 
hidden  mystery  of  things  he  might  have  pro- 
duced more;  but  would  it  have  been  worth 
the  smile  of  the  "  Mona  Lisa"  or  the  faces 
of  the  Academy  cartoon  ?  The  world  is  full  of 
commonplace  painters  whose  production  is  un- 
limited ;  is  it  not  better  to  have  the  few  master- 
pieces of  Leonardo,  full  of  subtle  witchery 
drawn  from  the  inmost  heart  of  nature  and  of 
man,  than  all  their  shallow  works  ?  We  must 
accept  him  as  he  is.  His  mind  was  too  vast, 
too  subtle,  for  him  to  be  a  largely  creative 
artist.  He  saw  too  deeply  into  the  essence  of 
things  to  be  content  with  facile  hand  to  depict 
their  surfaces.  His  visions  were  so  beautiful 
that  he  despaired  of  giving  them  tangible 
shapes,  and  preferred  to  leave  them  in  the 
realm  of  dreams.  Perhaps  he  cared  not  to 
bring  them  forth  to  public  view,  just  as  he  was 
content  with  merely  jotting  down  in  his  note- 
book discoveries  which  we  have  since  remade 


IO2  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

with  infinite  toil.  Perhaps  he  wished  to  do 
more  than  art  could,  and  so  accomplished  less 
than  it  might.  But  the  little  that  we  possess 
gives  us  a  deeper  insight  into  nature  and  the 
human  heart  than  we  should  otherwise  have 
had,  and  is  as  precious  as  it  is  rare.  Had  he 
not  been  so  curious  of  other  things  he  would 
have  painted  more,  but  he  could  not  have 
painted  as  he  did. 

Of  Leonardo  we  have  only  one  authentic 
portrait,  a  powerful  drawing  in  red  chalk  by 
his  own  hand,  representing  himself  in  his  old 
age,  and  it  is  the  saddest  portrait  that  was 
ever  made.  It  is  a  strong  face  with  beetling 
brows  and  piercing  eyes,  but  its  expression  is 
one  of  bitterest  disenchantment.  He  is  the 
man  to  whom  Nature  had  opened  her  bosom 
as  to  no  other  that  ever  lived,  who  read  as  in 
an  open  book  the  most  hidden  secrets  of  the 
human  heart,  and  the  only  result  is  an  inex- 
pressible bitterness,  an  unutterable  scorn  for 
man  and  perhaps  for  Nature.  With  all  his 
Herculean  strength,  he  died  of  exhaustion  at 
sixty-seven,  an  age  at  which  Michelangelo 
and  Titian  were  in  their  prime,  and  we  can 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI  103 

imagine  him  upon  his  death-bed  muttering 
to  himself,  "  Vanity  of  Vanities,  all  is  Van- 
ity. He  who  increaseth  Knowledge  increaseth 
Sorrow." 


TITIAN 


IN  Titian  the  Renaissance  culminates.  The 
revolt  against  the  Middle  Ages,  which  be- 
gan timidly  with  Niccolo  Pisano,  achieved  in 
him  its  completest  triumph.  Raphael  com- 
promised with  the  past,  and  fused  the  mediaeval 
and  classic  conceptions  into  a  new  ideal  of  ever- 
lasting beauty.  Rejecting  the  mediaeval  spirit, 
Titian,  although  he  painted  some  of  the  noblest 
of  religious  pictures,  was  essentially  a  pagan, 
with  all  a  Greek's  joy  in  the  dignity  of  man, 
the  beauty  of  woman,  and  the  charm  of  nature  ; 
loving  them  for  what  they  are,  and  with  no 
vain  aspirations  toward  a  higher  spiritual  life. 
Most  of  the  Renaissance  masters  are  still  strug- 
gling with  the  Middle  Age,  endeavoring  with 
only  partial  success  to  escape  from  the  prison 
in  which  it  has  confined  their  souls.  Titian 
104. 


TITIAN  IO5 

has  conquered  his  freedom,  or  rather  was 
born  free,  and  if  the  Middle  Age  exists  for 
him  at  all,  it  is  only  as  a  hideous  nightmare 
which  he  has  almost  forgotten  in  the  golden 
sunshine  of  a  perfect  day.  Life,  which  to 
the  mediaeval  conception  was  only  a  gloomy 
portal  leading  to  death  and  judgment,  is  to 
him  a  thing  of  infinite  beauty,  dignity,  and 
health. 

We  are  only  now  recovering  the  position  to 
which  Titian  had  attained.  The  Protestant 
Reformation,  followed  by  the  Catholic  Reac- 
tion, the  Spanish  Inquisition,  and  the  religious 
wars,  swept  away  the  bright  spirit  of  youthful 
joy  and  freedom  which  thrilled  the  men  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance,  and  plunged  the  world 
into  a  darkness  almost  as  black  and  even 
bloodier  and  more  hideous  than  the  night  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  This  terrible  tempest  of 
bigotry  and  wrath  has  thundered  past  us,  and 
for  two  hundred  years  the  clouds  that  it  left 
behind  have  been  drifting  slowly  by,  so  that 
at  length  we  can  again  look  at  the  world  with 
Titian's  eyes,  rejoicing  in  its  life  and  beauty, 
though  rather  with  the  saddened  gaze  of  his 


106  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

later  years  than  with  the  idyllic  freshness  of 
his  early  prime. 

In  his  broad  sanity,  his  masterful  serenity, 
his  perfect  control  of  the  resources  of  his  art, 
he  reminds  us  of  Goethe  in  his  Olympian  days 
at  Weimar;  but  unlike  Goethe  he  had  no 
Gothic  period,  no  season  of  storm  and  stress. 
From  the  time  when  he  came  to  Venice,  look- 
ing  with  the  wonder  of  a  mountain  lad  on  the 
dazzling  splendor  of  the  Ocean's  Queen,  until 
in  his  hundredth  year  he  laid  down  his  brush 
at  the  summons  of  the  plague,  he  is  ever  the 
same,  with  an  unchanging  sense  of  the  dignity 
of  life  and  of  nature's  beauty,  with  the  same 
broad  comprehension  of  humanity,  and  the 
same  exclusive  devotion  to  his  art.  We  see 
the  tree  grow  until  its  branches  reach  far  and 
wide,  but  its  symmetrical  form  remains  un- 
altered. To  the  end  of  his  unexampled  career 
he  follows  the  same  path,  ever  upward  and  on- 
ward, patiently,  firmly,  without  haste  and 
without  rest.  The  joy  of  existence  and  the 
love  of  beauty  for  its  own  sake  never  desert 
him,  and  the  Venuses  which  he  painted  when 
oppressed  by  the  burden  of  a  century  have  all 


TITIAN  ID/ 

the  voluptuous  charm  of  those  that  he  depicted 
in  his  lusty  manhood.  Who  that  looks  upon 
the  "  Sleeping  Antiope  "  of  the  Louvre  or  the 
"  Venus  and  her  Nymphs  Equipping  Cupid  " 
of  the  Borghese  Gallery,  would  imagine  that 
they  are  the  work  of  one  who  had  already  at- 
tained an  age  that  few  indeed  have  reached  ? 

In  the  handling  of  the  brush  he  was  the 
greatest  painter  of  all  time.  Others  may  be 
more  inspired,  but  in  brush-work  he  surpasses 
everyone.  He  can  paint  with  the  detail  of 
Albert  Diirer  or  the  breadth  of  Velasquez,  and 
seems  to  exhaust  every  possibility  of  his  craft, 
tone,  color,  texture,  perspective,  chiaroscuro, 
drawing,  composition.  In  particular  qualities 
there  are  others  who  can  surpass  him ;  but  no 
other  brings  to  the  technic  of  painting  a  pro- 
ficiency so  perfect  and  so  varied.  He  is  the 
most  rounded  and  complete  of  painters,  and 
therefore  the  hardest  to  describe.  If  a  man 
has  a  phenomenally  long  nose  or  a  monstrous 
head,  we  can  strike  off  his  portrait  in  a  few 
words ;  but  when  he  is  faultless  in  his  propor- 
tions, his  accurate  characterization  becomes  a 
matter  of  extreme  difficulty. 


108  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

The  Venetians  were  always  the  most  skilful 
painters  of  the  Renaissance.  Painting  is  color ; 
and  of  color  the  Venetians  were  the  supreme 
masters.  Their  merchants  traded  with  the 
Levant,  bringing  back  the  gorgeous  fabrics  of 
the  East.  They  beheld  the  splendor  of  the 
Orient,  and  transferred  it  to  their  city,  adorn- 
ing their  buildings  like  the  mosques  and  palaces 
of  Cairo  and  Damascus.  Beneath  their  feet 
was  the  emerald  sea  and  above  their  heads  the 
azure  dome  of  heaven.  The  ocean  mists  were 
tinged  with  a  thousand  hues,  while  far  away 
were  the  purple  summits  of  the  Alps.  And 
who  can  tell  what  effect  was  produced  upon 
their  art  by  those  gorgeous  sunsets  across  the 
Lagunes  that  Aretino  has  described  so  well  ? 
What  painter  could  look  upon  that  pageant  of 
gold  and  crimson  without  wishing  to  preserve 
it  on  his  canvas  ?  Hemmed  in  by  his  moun- 
tains clothed  in  the  pale  green  of  their  olives, 
a  Florentine  rarely  saw  the  perfect  glory  of  a 
sunset;  but  the  Venetian  lived  in  an  ever- 
changing  pageant  of  color.  It  became  to  him 
the  most  essential  part  of  life,  the  very  sub- 
stance of  existing  things.  Every  Venetian 


TITIAN 


painter  was  therefore  a  colorist,  and  of  them 
allvTitian  is  the  most  complete.  Giorgione  is 
sometimes  more  luminous,  Bonifazio  brighter, 
Tintoretto  more  startling,  Veronese  more 
stately,  and  if  they  could  all  be  combined  in 
one,  Titian  would  be  surpassed;  but  no  one 
of  them  has  such  perfect  mastery  of  color's 
varied  resources.  They  are  all  limited  in  their 
range,  while  he  is  universal.  And  no  one  ever 
knew  how  to  use  color  so  appropriately.  He 
understands  what  exact  tints  will  enhance  the 
effect  of  every  picture.  From  the  brilliant 
hues  of  his  bacchanals,  which  recall  the  emer- 
ald islands  of  the  sparkling  ^Egean,  and  the 
glorious  splendor  of  his  "Assumption,"  where 
heaven's  own  light  seems  streaming  through 
its  gates,  to  the  darkness  of  his  "  Entomb- 
ment "  that  so  heightens  the  agony  of  the 
scene,  he  adapts  his  color  to  his  subject  with  a 
skill  that  is  all  his  own.  And  when  we  consider 
that  these  colors  which  we  now  admire  so 
much  have  been  dimmed  and  faded  by  the 
lapse  of  more  than  three  centuries,  we  may  well 
be  amazed  at  the  thought  of  what  they  must 
have  been  in  their  pristine  glory. 


1 10  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

Yet  this  result  is  produced  by  comparatively 
simple  means.  He  was  not  a  searcher  after 
strange  and  recondite  pigments.  His  palette 
was  not  peculiar,  embracing  only  the  hues 
within  the  reach  of  every  painter,  and  he  dif- 
fered from  others  only  in  his  patient  industry 
and  consummate  skill,  an  industry  so  tireless 
that  he  worked  upon  his  pictures  for  years, 
going  over  them  again  and  again  and  altering 
them  repeatedly,  a  skill  so  great  that  many 
have  doubted  whether  it  was  oil  that  he  em- 
ployed, surmising  that  he  possessed  some 
vehicle  known  to  himself  alone — an  idea  that 
seems  to  be  without  foundation. 

Color  is  perhaps  the  most  enchanting  element 
of  beauty.  The  most  perfect  features  cannot 
redeem  a  face  if  the  complexion  be  bad,  while 
a  dazzling  complexion  will  lend  an  alluring 
charm  to  lineaments  the  most  irregular.  So, 
too,  color  is  the  essence  of  life,  as  pallor  is 
death's  most  striking  ensign.  It  is  therefore 
only  to  be  expected  that  Titian  should  excel 
all  other  painters  in  depicting  beauty,  as  he 
excels  all  save  only  Rubens,  the  mighty  color- 
ist  of  the  North,  in  imparting  a  sense  of  vital- 


TITIAN  1 1 1 

ity.  And  while  Rubens  surpasses  him  in  the 
intensity  of  vital  energy,  he  falls  far  below  in 
appreciation  of  life's  dignity  and  grace. 

It  is  the  fashion  in  recent  years  to  belittle 
Titian  as  a  religious  painter ;  but  his  are  among 
the  most  splendid  religious  pictures  that  we 
possess.  It  is  true  that  he  treats  them  from  a 
human  standpoint,  but  was  not  Christ  also  a 
man,  and  were  not  his  disciples  men  ?  The  rock 
on  which  devotional  painters  split  is  the  face  of 
Christ.  In  trying  to  make  it  divine  while  pre- 
serving its  meekness  and  humility  they  gener- 
ally make  it  weak  and  unmanly.  In  the  effort 
to  do  more  than  is  in  the  power  of  art,  they 
fall  below  what  they  might  accomplish.  Into 
this  trap  Titian  never  falls ;  and  since  the  de- 
struction of  Leonardo's  "  Last  Supper,"  which 
was  also  treated  from  a  purely  human  stand- 
point, probably  the  finest  head  of  Christ  that 
we  possess  is  in  Titian's  "  Tribute  Money." 
It  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  nobler  face,  or  to 
imagine  a  loftier  or  gentler  expression  of  re- 
proach, or  a  finer  contrast  than  is  presented  by 
the  cunning  Pharisee  beside  the  exalted  Christ. 

And  of  all  the  glorious  altar-pieces  that  Chris- 


112  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

tian  art  has  furnished,  the  most  magnificent  is 
the  "  Assumption^ "  It  provokes  comparison 
with  Raphael's  "Transfiguration,"  and  in  this 
instance  the  palm  must  be  awarded  to  Titian. 
It  is  a  perfect  composition,  all  centering  in  the 
stately  figure  of  the  Madonna,  to  whose  face 
the  eye  is  irresistibly  drawn  from  every  part  of 
the  canvas;  while  Raphael's  is  in  reality  two 
pictures  in  one,  and  the  drama  going  on  at  the 
foot  of  the  mountain  is  so  much  fuller  of 
human  interest  than  that  upon  the  summit 
that  the  eye  lingers  there  instead  of  soaring 
upward.  It  has  been  said  that  the  figure  of 
the  Madonna  is  too  matronly;  but  Titian  is 
right,  both  in  point  of  fact  and  in  point  of  art. 
The  Virgin  was  no  longer  young — she  was  the 
mother  of  a  son  who  had  died  at  the  age  of 
thirty-three,  and  she  must  have  been  fully  as 
mature  as  she  is  represented.  And  if  you 
doubt  the  correctness  of  his  artistic  judgment, 
imagine  a  slender,  girlish  figure  in  the  centre 
of  this  vast  composition  and  bearing  all  its 
weight.  The  balance  and  majesty  of  the 
picture  would  be  destroyed.  Then  it  is  said 
that  the  Apostles  below  are  too  agitated. 


TITIAN  113 

Even  in  those  days  it  was  not  an  every-day 
affair  for  a  person  to  be  carried  to  heaven 
by  exultant  angels.  The  amazement  of  the 
Apostles  was  therefore  natural ;  and  when  we 
consider  that  she  who  was  thus  snatched  from 
their  midst  by  the  angelic  host  in  a  burst  of 
light  and  song  was  one  whom  they  loved  and 
reverenced  with  an  absolute  devotion,  their 
agitation  is  no  greater  than  we  should  expect. 
When  we  consider  the  splendor  of  the  color, 
the  unity  of  the  composition,  the  majesty  of 
the  Madonna,  the  strength  of  the  Apostles,  the 
beauty  of  the  angels,  particularly  of  the  three 
exquisite  young  girls  upon  the  right,  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  name  another  altar-piece  that  can  stand 
beside  this.  In  particular  features  it  may  be 
excelled,  but  as  a  whole  it  is  unsurpassable. 

To  value  aright  the  greater  part  of  Titian's 
religious  pictures,  such  as  the  "  Pesaro  Ma- 
donna "  and  the  "  Presentation  of  the  Virgin 
in  the  Temple,"  we  must  understand  the  re- 
ligious feeling  of  Venice.  The  Venetian  was 
as  completely  absorbed  in  his  city  as  a  Roman 
of  the  Republic.  He  lived  for  Venice  alone, 
and  scarcely  had  a  separate  existence.  He 

8 


114  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

conceived  religion  not  so  much  as  a  matter  of 
personal  worship  as  of  state  ceremonial.  He 
was  first  a  Venetian  and  then  a  Christian.  Of 
the  Italian  cities  Venice  alone  is  personified  by 
her  citizens  like  Rome,  seated  upon  her  throne 
as  mistress  of  the  sea  while  the  nations  lay 
their  tribute  at  her  feet.  The  Venetian  who 
looked  upon  her  beauty  saw  in  her  the  god- 
dess of  his  idolatry,  and  her  faith  was  his. 
From  her  grandeur  he  derived  the  idea  of  his 
stately  and  ceremonial  religion,  which  in  the 
hands  of  Titian  is  so  noble  and  dignified,  but 
which  with  Veronese  is  to  degenerate  into  a 
splendid  but  worldly  pageant. 

And  it  was  with  this  conception  of  religion 
as  a  state  function  that  Titian  painted.  If  we 
consider  his  pictures  as  something  to  take  into 
our  closet  as  a  stimulus  to  personal  devotion, 
we  shall  be  much  disappointed  ;  but  if  we  place 
ourselves  in  his  point  of  view,  we  shall  perceive 
that  nothing  could  be  worthier  or  more  appro- 
priate— that  the  grand  solemnities  of  a  state 
religion  could  not  be  more  nobly  rendered. 

The  sense  of  humanity  which  gives  so  much 
life  and  interest  to  his  religious  pictures  makes 


TITIAN  115 

of  him  the  greatest  of  portrait  painters.  In 
this  line  even  Raphael,  Rubens,  Van  Dyck, 
and  Velasquez  must  yield  the  palm  to  him. 
The  vital  realism  of  his  portraits  is  unsur- 
passed, and  is  combined  with  a  sense  of  human 
dignity  that  gives  them  an  unique  distinction. 
How  much  of  this  dignity  was  in  the  subject 
and  how  much  in  the  painter  it  is  now  impos- 
sible to  determine.  We  should  deem  him  a 
flatterer  were  it  not  that  the  three  portraits 
where  he  had  most  interest  to  please,  those  of 
Paul  III.,  Charles  V.,  and  Philip  II.,  are  so 
cruelly  realistic.  Paul  appears  as  a  gaunt, 
treacherous  wolf,  while  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  the  protruding  under-jaw  and  sickly  phy- 
sique of  Charles  and  Philip  were  less  attractive 
than  they  are  represented.  Of  all  his  portraits 
these  possess  perhaps  the  least  of  his  peculiar 
dignity,  and  we  are  forced  to  conclude  that  he 
only  rendered  nobly  the  qualities  which  his 
sitters  in  fact  possessed. 

The  Venetian  nobility  were  a  superior  race. 
Venice  gave  to  her  nobles  wealth  and  power, 
but,  as  we  have  said,  she  exacted  in  return  the 
exclusive  consecration  of  their  lives.  To  find 


Il6  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

an  equal  absorption  of  the  citizen  in  his  city 
we  must  go  back  to  Sparta  or  to  Rome.  The 
Venetian  loved  Venice  with  an  intense  devo- 
tion that  made  exile  the  worst  of  punishments, 
so  that,  like  the  young  Foscari,  he  preferred 
to  die  at  home  beneath  the  torture  rather  than 
to  be  a  wanderer  in  foreign  lands.  The  life  of 
the  Venetian  nobility  was  one  of  labor  and 
danger,  and  they  stood  at  all  times  ready  to 
toil  and  bleed  and  die  for  Venice.  Yet  their 
intense  patriotism  involved  no  narrowness  of 
view.  Their  commerce  brought  them  into 
contact  with  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  and 
they  were  continually  sent  on  missions  of  war 
and  peace  to  foreign  capitals.  In  this  busy 
life,  with  their  minds  full  of  lofty  purposes  and 
unalterable  resolve,  they  acquired  something 
of  that  calm,  masterful  dignity  that  made  the 
ambassadors  of  Pyrrhus  see  in  the  Roman 
senate  a  council  of  the  gods.  Such  men  were 
Titian's  friends  and  associates,  and  their  proud, 
thoughtful  faces  he  transferred  to  the  canvas. 
His  own  genius  enabled  him  to  understand 
them,  and  their  society  helped  him  to  attain 
their  level.  His  portraits  are  therefore  not 


TITIAN  117 

merely  marvels  of  execution — they  give  us  an 
enhanced  appreciation  of  man's  dignity  and 
worth. 

He  is  the  painter  of  humanity.  In  the 
breadth  and  sanity  of  his  conception  of  man 
and  his  environment  he  has  no  superior  save 
Shakespeare,  whom  he  resembles  in  many 
ways.  He  does  not,  like  Raphael,  idealize 
human  nature  and  lift  it  to  a  higher  plane. 
Like  Shakespeare  he  accepts  it  as  it  is,  but 
from  the  herd  he  chooses  the  noblest  and  fair- 
est types.  And  he  is  the  painter  of  the  flesh. 
The  mediaeval  notion  that  the  flesh  is  hateful 
and  unclean  found  no  lodgment  in  his  mind. 
He  appreciated  its  beauty  with  the  simplicity 
of  a  Greek,  and  had  as  much  delight  in  its 
representation.  The  forms  of  his  women  are 
as  rounded  and  voluptuous  as  art  can  make 
them,  but  as  sane  and  wholesome  as  Grecian 
goddesses.  He  has  all  a  Greek's  joy  in  sensu- 
ous beauty,  but  he  is  always  healthy  and  virile, 
never  corrupt  or  coarse.  Except  in  some  cases 
where  he  is  constrained  by  the  necessities  of 
portraiture,  he  gives  to  his  nude  Venuses 
something  of  the  dignity  of  Venetian  senators. 


Il8  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

Venetian  painting  was  allowed  to  develop 
along  the  lines  of  pure  decoration,  almost  en- 
tirely unaffected  by  those  classical  influences 
that  moulded  the  art  of  Florence.  And  this 
was  a  great  good  fortune.  The  Florentine 
school  could  not  have  been  surpassed  in  its 
special  qualities,  and  as  it  is  we  have  two 
manifestations  of  artistic  genius  as  different  as 
if  they  had  grown  up  in  remote  regions  of  alien 
race,  the  one  the  product  of  thought  and  study, 
the  other  as  spontaneously  beautiful  as  a 
flower.  By  their  contrast  each  enhances  the 
other's  interest,  and  both  are  essential  to  the 
glorious  harmony  of  the  Renaissance. 

Of  all  the  arts  painting  was  the  one  which 
on  its  revival  was  least  affected  by  the  art  of 
antiquity.  It  was  not  until  long  afterward, 
when  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum  were  un- 
covered, that  men  acquired  any  adequate  con- 
ception of  the  style  of  painting  practised 
among  the  ancients;  and  the  influence  of  an- 
tique art  on  painting  was  indirect,  working 
through  the  medium  of  sculpture.  This  is  one 
reason  why  the  painting  of  the  Renaissance  is 
so  superior.  It  is  spontaneous  and  original; 


TITIAN  IIQ 

and  particularly  was  this  true  in  Venice. 
There  were  no  remains  of  ancient  statuary  to 
be  found  in  her  lagunes,  and  she  was  too  much 
occupied  with  war  and  commerce  to  import 
them.  Her  attention  was  directed  not  to  the 
dead  past,  but  to  the  living  East  and  her  per- 
ennial contest  with  the  Turk.  Yet  in  its  spirit 
Venetian  painting  is  far  nearer  to  Greece  than 
that  of  Florence.  There  was  no  conscious 
imitation,  but  the  Venetians  were  imbued  with 
the  same  sentiments — a  respect  for  the  dignity 
of  man  and  a  love  for  the  beauty  of  nature. 
And  of  this  revived  spirit  of  antiquity,  this 
new  flowering  of  humanity,  this  unconscious 
neo-paganism,  Titian  is  the  supreme  exponent. 
The  first  to  realize  it  fully  was  Giorgione, 
who  revolutionized  the  art  of  Venice,  so  that 
all  men  had  to  follow  in  his  footsteps  or  be 
forgotten.  He  was  a  fellow-pupil  of  Titian  in 
Bellini's  workshop,  and  they  appear  to  have 
been  born  in  the  same  year;  but  it  seems  to  be 
universally  conceded  that  it  was  Giorgione  who 
invented  the  new  style.  He,  however,  did  not 
advance  beyond  the  idyl.  He  felt  as  no  artist 
has  ever  felt  the  sweet  poetry  of  nature,  so 


120  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

joyous  and  yet  so  near  to  melancholy,  that  we 
find  in  Daphnis  and  Chloe  and  in  Theocritus; 
but  he  found  that  domain  so  charming  that  he 
sought  no  further.  Titian  adopted  Giorgione's 
spirit  and  method,  and  in  the  "  Sacred  and 
Profane  Love"  and  the  "Three  Ages  of 
Man  "  presented  them  to  perfection.  But  he 
was  not  content  to  remain  there.  He  de- 
veloped the  new  art  in  every  direction,  and 
applied  it  to  the  most  varied  and  important 
themes.  In  his  hands  it  gradually  lost  some- 
thing of  its  poetry,  but  it  gained  immensely  in 
dignity  and  breadth. 

Her  absorption  in  practical  affairs  also  pre- 
cluded Venice  from  becoming  a  literary  centre, 
and  preserved  her  art  from  the  literary  bias 
that  is  visible  upon  the  mainland.  The  de- 
mands which  she  made  upon  the  time  and 
energies  of  her  nobles  were  too  great  to  allow 
them  much  leisure  for  literary  pursuits.  The 
love  of  fame  which  led  the  Italian  princes  to 
gather  around  them  scholars  and  poets  to  per- 
petuate the  memory  of  their  exploits  was  for- 
bidden by  the  jealous  oligarchy  which  ruled  in 
Venice,  and  which  insisted  sternly  upon  the 


TITIAN  121 

principle  of  equality  among  the  governing 
class.  Though  on  account  of  her  freedom  and 
her  commercial  advantages  she  had  long  been 
the  centre  of  the  book-trade,  it  was  only  when 
the  Spanish  Inquisition  had  rendered  intellec- 
tual life  throughout  the  Peninsula  a  thing  of 
extremest  danger  that  the  humanists  sought  an 
asylum  in  Venice,  where  they  found  the  same 
protection  that  England  has  afforded  to  the 
political  refugees  of  later  days.  But  they 
came  only  after  Venice  had  formed  her  style 
of  painting,  and  too  late  to  produce  a  marked 
effect  either  upon  its  spirit  or  its  practice.  The 
Venetian  princes  had  encouraged  art  only  be- 
cause it  had  served  to  decorate  the  city  they 
loved  so  well.  Hence  the  decorative  element, 
not  the  illustrative,  remained  paramount  in 
Venetian  painting.  Some,  like  Giorgione, 
never  grasped  at  all  the  idea  of  illustration. 
Several  of  his  pictures,  which  Herr  Franz 
Wickhoff  has  demonstrated  to  have  been  in- 
tended as  illustrations  of  classic  authors,  are  so 
ineffectual  as  such  that  they  have  been  always 
mistaken  for  charming  but  incomprehensible 
allegories. 


122  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

p 

So  it  was  with  Titian  in  his  early  days.  The 
wonderfully  beautiful  picture  in  the  Borghese 
collection  of  two  women,  one  nude  and  the 
other  richly  draped,  seated  beside  a  fountain 
in  which  a  Cupid  is  playing,  has  always  been 
known  by  the  absurd  title  of  "  Sacred  and 
Profane  Love,"  and  has  been  considered  a 
profound  allegory,  though  none  could  say 
.which  was  the  sacred  and  which  the  profane. 
Now,  however,  the  same  eminent  scholar  has 
shown  that  it  was  painted  to  illustrate  the 
Argonautica  of  Valerius  Flaccus,  and  repre- 
sents Venus  persuading  Medea  to  fly  with 
Jason — that  it  is  one  of  those  subjects  sug- 
gested to  the  painter  by  the  scholars  who  had 
sought  refuge  in  Venice,  as  was  also  perhaps 
the  picture  entitled  the  "  Three  Ages  of 
Man." 

This  incapacity  to  conceive  of  art  otherwise 
than  as  decoration,  which  remained  with  Gior- 
gione  till  his  death,  was  overcome  by  Titian, 
and  the  passages  chosen  from  the  Erotes  of 
Philostratus  and  the  Epithalamium  of  Peleus 
and  Thetis  of  Catullus  could  not  have  been 
better  rendered  than  they  are  in  the  "  Worship 


TITIAN  123 

of  Venus  "  and  the  "  Bacchus  and  Ariadne," 
whose  meaning  is  apparent  at  a  glance. 

Titian's  progress  in  composition  is  conspicu- 
ous. At  first  he  seems  to  have  painted  pictures 
mostly  for  the  beauty  of  the  individual  figures; 
but  later  he  displayed  great  skill  in  composing 
— a  skill  only  surpassed  by  that  of  Raphael, 
and  which  he  perhaps  owed  in  some  measure 
to  his  visit  to  Rome  and  his  study  of  the  lat- 
ter's  masterpieces.  Still,  even  to  the  end  he 
was  uncertain  in  composition,  often  splendid, 
generally  good,  but  sometimes  strangely  de- 
fective. 

It  has  been  said  that  he  was  no  draughts- 
man, but  the  charge  shows  a  misconception  of 
his  art.  Drawing  implies  an  insistence  upon 
the  outline,  and  the  greatest  draughtsmen  are 
those  who  render  the  outline  with  the  greatest 
power.  Titian  was  not  of  these.  His  system 
implied  the  subordination  of  the  outline.  He 
rendered  form  by  color,  light  and  shade  and 
atmosphere,  as  Nature  does,  and  in  his  proc- 
esses he  was  truer  to  Nature's  methods  than 
Michelangelo.  The  outline  of  his  figures  is 
rarely  prominent,  but  the  figures  themselves 


124  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

are  admirably  modelled,  and  in  his  "  St.  Peter 
Martyr"  he  displayed  a  power  of  drawing 
that  Michelangelo  himself  might  envy,  together 
with  a  feeling  for  landscape  of  which  the  great 
Florentine  was  wholly  destitute.  -That  picture 
shows  that  if  he  had  wished  to  be  a  draughts- 
man he  could  have  ranked  with  th*e  Jrig$es$Q 
but  he  preferred  the  domain  of  color,  light, 
and  air.  Michelangelo  was  in  Venice  while  it 
was  being  painted,  and  perhaps  influenced  its 
style.  This,  however,  is  doubtful,  for  the 
"  Danae  "  that  Titian  painted  in  Rome  is  thor- 
oughly Venetian. 

In  his  work  he  generally  preferred  repose  or 
quiet  movement,  but  when  he  desired  he  could 
be  agitated  and  dramatic.  He  understood  that 
it  is  pleasantest  to  live  with  pictures  of  serene 
and  tranquil  beauty,  but  when  the  occasion 
demanded  he  was  a  master  of  vehement  action 
and  intense  emotion. 

He  was  not  a  great  anatomist  like  Michel- 
angelo. He  did  not  love  the  body  for  its 
framework  of  bones  and  muscle,  but  for  the 
beauty  of  its  fleshly  covering.  And  no  one 
has  rendered  this  so  well.  The  female  types 


TITIAN  125 

that  he  prefers  are  voluptuous  and  full,  so  that 
the  muscles  are  rarely  seen,  and  as  they  are 
fitted  rather  for  repose  than  for  action,  he 
shows  them  seated  or  reclining,  sometimes  in 
princely  palaces,  sometimes  upon  the  sward 
beneath  overarching  trees  or  beside  the  sea. 
He  is  the  painter  of  woman's  form,  as  Leo- 
nardo is  the  painter  of  her  soul ;  and  his  women, 
so  beautiful  and  so  healthy,  often  with  that 
hair  of  reddish  gold  that  has  acquired  his  name, 
stand  among  modern  works  where  the  Venus 
of  Cnidus  did  among  the  ancient. 

He  is  sensuous  but  never  gross.  He  remains 
always  an  aristocrat  to  his  finger-tips.  Amongst 
the  commonplace  and  vulgar  types  that  cover 
the  walls  of  our  modern  salons  his  women 
would  reign  as  queens.  He  painted  them  for 
the  great  of  the  earth,  for  the  princes  and 
nobles  with  whom  he  associated,  not  for  the 
vulgar  populace. 

And,  indeed,  no  modern  populace  has  suffi- 
ciently shaken  off  the  Middle  Ages  properly  to 
enjoy  the  nude.  When  certain  men  appeared 
naked  before  the  Empress  Livia,  and  her  ser- 
vants would  have  chastised  them,  she  forbade 


126  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

it,  saying,  "  Let  them  alone;  to  a  pure  woman 
they  are  only  statues."  But  to  the  modern 
populace  statues  are  only  naked  men  and 
women.  In  Titian's  time,  however,  as  with 
us  to-day,  many  of  the  intelligent  classes  had 
passed  beyond  that  stage,  and  for  them  he 
painted,  producing  works  which,  however  dif- 
ferent in  their  mode  of  treatment,  would  have 
delighted  the  companions  of  Pericles,  and 
would  have  been  hailed  with  universal  ac- 
clamation by  that  beauty-loving  people  who 
assembled  in  multitudes  to  gaze  upon  the 

charms  of  Phryne  or  of  Lais. 

' 

He  was  a  master  of  many  manners.  He 
began  with  the  idyllic  style  of  Giorgione,  in 
which  is  to  be  found  the  sweetest  essence  of 
bucolic  poetry.  But  he  passed  on  to  the 
splendid  realism  of  his  portraits,  the  grand 
style  of  his  "Assumption,"  the  agony  of  his 
'  Entombment,"  and  the  unspeakable  torture 
of  his  "  Mocking  of  Christ."  No  painter  save 
only  Raphael  has  covered  so  wide  a  field,  or 
covered  it  so  well. 

But  in  one  respect  he  was  the  very  antithesis 
of  Raphael.  As  if  conscious  that  his  life  and 


TITIAN  127 

vigor  were  to  be  prolonged  to  an  unexampled 
degree,  he  was  in  no  haste,  though  he  rested 
not,  and  his  development  was  slow;  while 
Raphael,  as  if  aware  that,  like  Achilles,  his 
career  was  to  be  as  brief  as  glorious,  developed 
at  the  earliest  moment,  and  crowded  into  his 
narrow  span  every  possible  activity. 

Though  his  masterful  repose  was  removed 
as  far  as  possible  from  Byron's  storm  and 
stress,  in  two  respects  they  were  strikingly 
alike — they  had  a  more  intense  and  personal 
comprehension  of  woman's  beauty  than  any- 
one else  has  had,  and  an  unequalled  feeling 
for  nature,  a  sort  of  pantheistic  sense  of  being 
a  part  j)f  the  inanimate  world. 

Titian  was  the  first  in  modern  times  to  paint 
a  landscape.  There  were  many  fine  landscapes 
before  his  day,  and  landscape-painting  has 
achieved  few  greater  triumphs  than  in  his 
master  Bellini's  "  Agony  in  the  Garden,"  with 
that  awful  light  in  the  east  proclaiming  the 
lurid  dawning  of  the  fatal  day.  But  they  were 
only  backgrounds.  Titian  was  the  first  to 
paint  a  landscape  for  itself  alone.  The  land- 
scape, too,  is  an  important  part  of  nearly  all  his 


128  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

pictures,  and  it  is  as  appropriate  as  his  colors. 
It  smiles  with  the  joyous,  it  weeps  with  the 

sorrowing,  it  thunders  with  the  wrathful., It 

is  not,  as  with  Raphael,  nature  dominated  by 
man ;  it  is  man  and  nature  as  inseparable  parts 
of  a  pantheistic  whole,  laughing,  wailing,  curs- 
ing together,  and  each  answering  to  the  other's 
mood.  He,  too,  painted  a  great  battle-piece, 
which  has  perished,  and  which  we  know  only 
by  engravings  and  his  sketch.  It  is  not  so 
passionate  as  Leonardo's,  nor  so  harmonious  as 
Raphael's;  but  it  differs  from  both  in  the  in- 
sistence upon  the  landscape,  and  in  the  violent 
tempest  by  which  Nature  contributes  to  the 
tumult  of  the  strife. 

He  was  the  first  to  understand  the  grandeur 
and  the  mystery  of  the  mountains.  To  the 
ancients  and  to  his  contemporaries  they  were 
simply  horrid  and  forbidding.  He  was  born 
among  them,  and  he  loved  them  with  a  moun- 
taineer's devotion  to  his  home.  But  he  knew 
how  to  use  them  for  artistic  purposes.  He 
knew  that  the  barren  desolation  of  mountain 
regions  soon  wearies  the  eye,  and  that  the  true 
function  of  mountains  in  landscape-painting  is 


TITIAN  129 

as  a  background  to  verdant  and  alluring  scenes. 
As  such  they  are  supremely  effective,  lending 
grandeur  and  sublimity  to  a  view  which  would 
otherwise  be  only  pretty.  Of  all  painters  he 
uses  mountains  with  the  greatest  felicity.  In 
most  of  his  pictures  his  native  Dolomites,  far 
away,  as  he  saw  them  from  Venice  or  the  ad- 
jacent mainland,  stand  out  blue  in  the  distance, 
enveloping  the  landscape  with  a  sense  of 
mystery  and  awe.  He  was  the  greatest  of 
landscape-painters  until  Claude  Lorraine,  and 
in  breadth  exceeded  him,  passing  from  the 
idyllic  suavity  of  Giorgione's  scenes  to  the 
desolate  horror  which  forms  the  appropriate 
setting  to  St.  Peter's  death. 

Like  Raphael  he  is  a  painter  to  live  with. 
He  is  not  a  striver  after  the  unattainable,  a 
wearier  of  the  flesh,  like  Michelangelo.  With 
him  there  is  no  strife  between  mind  and  body. 
Each  is  suited  to  the  other,  and  repose  and 
harmony  result.  He  is  the  painter  of  man  as 
a  citizen  of  the  world,  of  woman  as  a  thing  of 
beauty,  all  placed  in  a  suitable  environment. 
He  is  mundane  and  human,  while  Raphael 

soars  above  the  earth,  but  he  is  equally  serene, 

I 


I3O  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

and  he  lends  to  our  mortal  life  a  dignity  and  a 
beauty  that  we  can  never  contemplate  too 
often.  He  may  not  lift  us  up,  but  he  gives  us 
a  keener  and  a  fuller  sense  of  the  worthiness 
of  terrestrial  things. 


CORREGGIO 
(1494-1534) 

CORREGGIO  is  a  Greek  of  the  Ionian 
Isles,  the  fit  companion  of  Sappho,  of 
Alcaeus,  of  Anacreon,  full  of  the  joy  of  life, 
of  the  adoration  of  physical  beauty,  blithe  as  a 
skylark,  lovely  as  the  morning.  The  return  to 
the  pagan  spirit  is  not  with  him  the  result 
of  study  and  conscious  effort,  as  with  most  of 
his  contemporaries ;  he  was  born  a  pagan  of  the 
gladsome  days  when  the  forests  were  full  of 
fauns  and  dryads,  when  a  nymph  lay  hidden  in 
every  fountain,  when  the  wilderness  trembled 
with  the  sighs  of  the  amorous  Pan.  How  such 
a  spirit  survived  the  darkness  and  sorrow  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  its  joy  undimmed,  its  bright- 
ness untarnished,  fresh  as  in  the  days  when 
Apollo  watched  the  flocks  of  Admetus  on  the 
Thessalian  plains,  is  one  of  those  problems  of 
which  there  is  no  solution. 
131 


I32  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

He  is  the  painter  of  joy,  of  a  dithyrambic 
ecstasy  which,  if  it  ever  existed  in  this  work- 
a-day  world,  has  long  since  passed  away.  His 
family  name,  Allegri,  means  joyful,  and  he  ac- 
cepted it  as  descriptive,  for  he  often  signs  him- 
self Lieto,  or  Laetus,  its  Italian  and  Latin 
synonyms.  In  Italy  there  has  never  been  the 
break  of  continuity  between  classic  and  modern 
times  that  exists  in  other  lands,  and  perhaps 
Correggio  was  descended  from  some  glad  pagan 
of  the  ancient  days  whose  jocund  spirit  won 
for  him  the  title  that  was  borne  by  his  descend- 
ants. And  Correggio  almost  makes  us  believe 
in  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis.  In  an  ob- 
scure little  town  scarcely  to  be  found  upon  an 
ordinary  map,  and  in  the  humble  dwelling  of  a 
small  merchant,  he  was  born,  the  glorious  rein- 
carnation of  the  spirit  of  Grecian  joy,  which 
had  been  crushed  beneath  the  iron  heel  of  im- 
perial Rome  and  entombed  in  mediaeval  dark- 
ness. And  he  comes  forth  from  his  long  sleep 
with  no  stain  of  the  past  upon  him,  fresher, 
brighter,  more  buoyant  than  when  he  wandered 
with  Sappho  and  Anacreon  through  Lesbos 
and  Ionia.  Everything  with  him  is  gladsome, 


CORREGGIO  133 

and  even  the  Fates,  whom  other  artists  have 
conceived  as  gloomy,  stern  and  old,  he  repre- 
sents as  youthful  maidens  spinning  the  shining 
webs  of  golden  destinies. 

It  has  been  the  fashion  of  late  years  to  de- 
preciate Correggio,  but  it  is  difficult  to  see  why 
he  should  not  be  numbered  with  the  greatest. 
It  is  true  that  his  art  bears  the  same  relation 
to  that  of  Raphael  and  Michelangelo  that  lyric 
poetry  bears  to  the  drama  and  the  epic.  But 
is  the  lyric  essentially  inferior  ?  Is  not  the 
quivering,  impassioned  song,  free  in  its  move- 
ment as  the  air  and  beautiful  as  the  sunset,  one 
of  the  highest  expressions  of  poetic  genius  ? 
The  Greeks,  who  were  no  mean  judges,  ranked 
Sappho's  Odes  with  the  Iliad  of  Homer,  and 
he  who  loves  beauty  for  its  own  sake  must  be 
drawn  to  Correggio  with  an  irresistible  attrac- 
tion. 

Beauty  and  joy  are  the  essence  of  his  art, 
beauty  of  a  sweetly  sensuous  type,  exultant, 
rapturous  joy  such  as  the  modern  world  has 
never  seen.  His  beings  are  not  of  the  earth 
that  we  know,  neither  are  they  of  heaven. 
Sometimes  they  are  the  fauns  that  basked  in 


134  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

the  sunlight  and  frolicked  in  the  shadows  of 
Grecian  woodlands,  sometimes  the  Ariels  who 
palpitate  with  ecstasy  as  they  disport  them- 
selves in  the  blue  empyrean. 

His  children  and  his  boys  are  the  loveliest 
that  were  ever  painted,  far  exceeding  poor  sad 
humanity  in  their  beauty  as  in  their  joy.  His 
infants  that  frolic  among  the  clouds  or  play  at 
Madonnas'  feet  are  thrilled  with  a  rapture  such 
as  childhood  never  knew,  and  the  happiness  of 
his  youths  reaches  the  highest  pitch  of  lyric 
transport.  Even  the  jubilant  gladness  of 
_.  Shelley's  Ode  to  the  Skylark  gives  no  idea  of 
their  feelings. 

It  would  be  wrong  to  call  his  beings  super- 
human. They  are  fairer  and  happier  than 
man  can  ever  be,  but  they  lack  that  tinge  of 
sadness  which  purifies  and  elevates  humanity 
at  its  best.  They  are  spirits  of  the  air  that 
hover  near  to  earth,  playing  in  the  sunbeams 
and  wantoning  with  the  roses,  and  they  have 
never  scaled  those  heights  wrapped  in  storms 
and  clouds  which  the  soul  of  man  can  reach. 
Our  own  Shakespeare,  whose  immeasurable  gen- 
ius enabled  him  to  comprehend  not  merely  the 


CORREGGIO  135 

infinite  complexities  of  humanity,  but  the  un- 
seen beings  that  people  the  air  about  us,  alone 
has  understood  them,  and  in  the  Midsummer 
Night 's  Dream  and  The  Tempest  he  brings  them 
into  view — Oberon,  Ariel,  and  their  rout, 
creatures  of  inexpressible  grace  and  gladness, 
wanton  yet  innocent,  knowing  nothing  of  sor- 
row and  incapable  of  guilt. 

These  are  the  types  which  give  to  Correg- 
gio's  works  their  essential  character.  He  can 
represent  grief  with  infinite  truth,  and  the  sad, 
sweet  face  of  the  Madonna  in  his  "  Ecce 
Homo  "  of  the  National  Gallery  has  been 
the  model  for  all  subsequent  pictures  of  the 
Mater  Dolorosa.  But  with  him  joy  is  con- 
tagious while  sorrow  is  individual.  His  glad- 
some pictures  are  glad  throughout,  all  his 
figures  joining  in  the  glorious  paeon  of  raptur- 
ous delight ;  while  his  mournful  works  are  so 
only  in  part.  The  pious  wish  that  health 
might  be  contagious  instead  of  disease  finds 
its  realization  in  his  ideal  world. 

No  other  artist  ever  took  so  lofty  a  flight 
from  so  low  an  eminence.  He  was  brought  up 
in  the  insignificant  Emilian  town  whose  name 


136  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

he  bears,  and  it  is  not  known  that  he  ever  had 
a  competent  teacher.  He  never  visited  Flor- 
ence, Rome,  or  Venice.  Morelli  sees  in  his 
works  traces  of  Francia's  influence,  but  there 
is  no  proof  that  he  was  ever  at  Bologna,  or 
that  he  ever  beheld  one  of  Francia's  pictures. 
Traces  of  Mantegna's  influence  are  apparent, 
and  it  is  strongly  believed  that  he  must  have 
studied  at  Mantua;  but  the  genius  of  Man- 
tegna,  the  severest  of  Renaissance  masters,  has 
so  little  in  common  with  Correggio's  that  the 
influence  could  not  have  been  great.  It  is 
suspected  that  he  must  have  seen  something 
by  Leonardo  and  Raphael,  but  there  is  no  cer- 
tainty, perhaps  no  likelihood,  of  that.  He  is 
generally  looked  upon  as  an  outgrowth  from 
the  school  of  Ferrara,  but  his  gracious  style 
has  little  in  common  with  that  of  Tura,  Costa, 
Grandi,  or  even  Dosso.  Of  course  he  learned 
the  rudiments  of  painting  from  someone.  The 
mastery  of  technic  results  only  from  the  labor 
of  successive  generations,  and  no  one  who 
begins  at  the  beginning  can  accomplish  much. 
But  the  vital  elements  of  his  style  are  all  his  own, 
and  its  originality  is  as  striking  as  its  beauty. 


CORK  EGG  10  137 

Perhaps  his  isolation  was  an  advantage. 
With  none  about  him  of  commensurate  talents, 
his  genius  was  left  in  unfettered  freedom  to 
develop  along  its  own  lines.  Contact  with 
men  of  equal  force  might  have  robbed  him  of 
a  portion  of  his  originality,  taken  away  some- 
thing of  the  lyric  ecstasy  of  his  works  and  left 
them  more  formal  and  academic.  It  is  sad  to 
think  that  one  of  the  few  supreme  masters  of 
art  should  have  passed  his  life  in  obscurity, 
without  the  fellowship  of  the  great  men  who 
could  have  understood  his  worth ;  but  perhaps 
it  is  better  as  it  is.  Who  can  tell  what  effect 
the  life  of  courts  would  have  had  on  the  ex- 
quisite poetry  of  his  delicate  nature  ? 

Nor  was  the  place  of  his  birth  so  unpropi- 
tious  as  it  would  seem  at  first.  The  spirit  of 
the  Renaissance  had  permeated  the  whole  of 
Northern  Italy,  and  in  every  town  and  hamlet 
men  talked  of  Plato  and  Apelles,  often  with 
insufficient  knowledge,  but  always  with  un- 
limited enthusiasm.  The  little  city  of  Correg- 
gio,  now  so  drowsy,  was  then  the  centre  of 
considerable  intellectual  activity.  At  no  time 
have  women  been  more  cultivated  or  more 


138  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

influential  than  during  the  Italian  Renaissance, 
and  in  Correggio's  day  the  petty  court  of  his 
native  town  was  presided  over  by  Veronica 
Gambara,  one  of  the  most  charming  of  her  sex, 
a  lover  of  art  and  literature  and  a  poetess  of 
decided  merit.  Existing  documents  show  that 
Correggio  must  have  been  a  welcome  visitor  at 
this  court,  and  there,  if  he  met  no  artists  of  the 
first  distinction,  he  at  least  found  painters  who 
could  teach  him  the  rudiments  of  his  craft,  and 
he  sucked  in  with  every  breath  that  love  of 
classic  beauty  that  was  the  very  soul  of  the 
Renaissance.  Even  in  that  provincial  town 
the  opportunities  for  grasping  the  true  spirit 
of  artistic  creation  excelled  those  now  offered 
by  many  a  pretentious  city.  That  spirit  of 
youth  which  characterizes  the  Renaissance 
movement  was  stirring  in  the  breast  of  every- 
one. Each  felt  that  he  had  a  message  for  his 
fellow  men,  and  strove  to  utter  it.  Some 
sought  to  do  so  in  words,  others  by  the  brush ; 
and  art,  which  owes  its  origin  in  some  measure 
to  the  longing  of  the  soul  to  escape  its  solitude 
and  commune  with  its  fellows,  naturally  re- 
ceived a  tremendous  impulse. 


CORREGGIO  139 

Living  as  they  did  at  the  centre  of  the 
world's  thought  and  culture,  where  the  most 
complex  problems  were  agitating  the  minds  of 
men,  it  was  inevitable  that  the  art  of  Leonardo, 
Raphael,  and  Michelangelo  should  be  weighted 
with  a  deep  significance.  But  probably  the 
profoundest  thought  with  which  Correggio 
came  in  contact  was  the  sweet,  feminine  poetry 
of  Veronica  Gambara,  which  cast  no  burden 
upon  his  mind.  In  art's  great  symphony  the 
high,  clear  notes  that  thrill  us  in  the  paeon  are 
as  essential  to  the  harmony  as  the  echoing 
basses  of  the  dirge  or  the  mellow  beauty  of  the 
middle  chords,  and  it  is  well  that  Correggio 
was  left  to  play  them  to  the  end. 

From  the  time  when  Vasari  and  the  Caracci 
proclaimed  his  merits  to  the  world,  he  was  the 
object  of  unqualified  admiration  until  recent 
years,  when  there  arose  a  school  of  critics,  with 
Mr.  Ruskin  at  their  head,  who  loudly  condemn 
him  as  immoral.  They  might  as  well  inveigh 
against  the  morality  of  a  skylark  or  a  turtle- 
dove. The  feelings  which  he  expresses  are  joy 
and  love,  and  if  they  are  immoral,  heaven  must 
be  a  place  of  exceeding  wickedness. 


14°  RENAISSANCE   MASTERS 

It  is  readily  conceivable  that  persons  who 
think  that  the  function  of  art  is  to  inculcate 
moral  precepts  should  find  nothing  to  attract 
them  in  his  works;  but  it  is  amazing  that  in- 
tolerance in  this  age  should  be  carried  so  far  as 
Mr.  Ruskin  carries  it  when  he  brands  as  "  las- 
civious "  the  Magdalen  of  the  Holy  Family 
called  the  "  Day,"  who,  fully  draped,  nestles 
against  the  shoulder  of  the  Virgin,  one  of  the 
sweetest  incarnations  of  womanhood  in  all  the 
range  of  art. 

It  is  said  that  if  his  beings  were  alive  they 
would  be  of  no  use.  It  is  true  that  they  would 
not  be  serviceable  as  plow-hands  or  as  soldiers. 
But  is  beauty  of  no  utility  ?  Is  not  the  flower 
that  adorns  the  fields,  which  toils  not,  neither 
does  it  spin,  as  essential  in  the  world's  economy 
as  the  cabbage  or  the  potato  ?  Is  the  great 
singer  who  thrills  the  hearts  of  thousands  to  be 
condemned  because  she  cannot  toil  upon  the 
highway  or  fight  in  the  ranks  of  battle  ?  The 
love  of  beauty  is  one  of  the  greatest  influences 
in  the  refinement  and  elevation  of  humanity, 
and  its  contemplation  is  one  of  the  few  enjoy- 
ments that  leave  no  sting  behind. 


CORK  EGG  10  141 

It  is  true  that  his  beings,  were  they  alive, 
would  be  wrapped  up  in  the  joy  of  living  and 
the  ecstasy  of  light  and  air;  but  they  would  be 
as  harmless  as  birds.  And  can  as  much  be  said 
of  the  prodigious  figures  of  Michelangelo  which 
are  supposed  to  breathe  so  lofty  a  morality  ? 
Would  the  "  David  "  care  greatly  who  fell  be- 
fore his  wrath  ?  Would  not  the  "  Moses  "  in 
his  immeasurable  pride  tread  the  innocent  and 
the  guilty  indiscriminately  under  foot  ?  And 
who  can  assure  us  that  the  mighty  figures  on 
the  Medicean  tombs,  if  they  should  rouse 
themselves,  would  not  wish  to  plunge  the 
world  into  a  gloom  as  overwhelming  as  their 
own  ? 

There  is  nothing  immoral  in  joy,  neither  is 
love  a  sin.  The  early  Christians  believed  that 
God  was  love,  and  as  such  He  is  portrayed  in 
the  catacombs,  where  the  pictures  are  all  cheer- 
ful, even  joyous.  But  in  the  frightful  night 
of  the  Middle  Ages  man's  conception  of  God 
underwent  a  change.  Judging  Him  by  their 
own  misery  and  suffering,  they  conceived  Him 
as  a  being  of  implacable  wrath  and  hate,  de- 
lighting in  His  creatures'  woes.  Gladness  and 


142  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

beauty  were  accounted  sinful,  sighs  and  tears 
and  the  maceration  of  the  flesh  were  alone  sup- 
posed to  find  favor  in  the  sight  of  God.  That 
mediaeval  conception  of  Christianity,  so  differ- 
ent from  the  benign  spirit  of  Him  whose  first 
miracle  was  wrought  that  nothing  might  mar 
the  joy  of  a  wedding  festival,  still  persists  in 
the  hearts  and  minds  of  many ;  and  to  such, 
and  to  such  alone,  Correggio  is  immoral.  Love 
is  holy,  and  joy  that  is  not  purchased  with 
another's  pain  is  sweet  and  good.  These  are 
the  worst  sentiments  that  Correggio  expresses, 
and  he  is  no  more  open  to  the  charge  of  im- 
morality than  the  wanton  flower  that  is  kissed 
by  the  breeze.  He  may  be  called  unmoral,  but 
he  is  not  immoral.  His  works  simply  have 
nothing  to  do  with  morality.  He  belongs  to 
the  class  of  those  who  are  neither  for  heaven 
nor  against  it.  He  is  content  with  depicting 
beauty  in  its  most  exquisite  forms,  with  no 
suggestion  of  evil,  and  if  others  are  seduced 
by  it  he  is  no  more  concerned  than  the  youth- 
ful angels  whose  charms  so  tempted  Mephis- 
topheles  at  the  burial  of  Faust.  He  is  as  inno- 
cent of  offence  as  the  children  of  Adam  and  Eve 


CORREGGIO  143 

playing  unclothed  among  the  thornless  roses 
of  Eden.  He  belongs  to  the  age  when  men 
were  naked  and  were  not  ashamed,  and  if  we 
have  eaten  of  the  forbidden  fruit,  the  fault  is  not 
with  him.  Raphael's  beauty  is  of  a  kind  that 
cannot  be  divorced  from  active  goodness ;  Cor- 
reggio's  is  neither  good  nor  evil,  but  simply 
innocent  and  glad. 

In  his  early  works  there  is  a  marked  religious 
/  feeling,  though  conceived  in  a  sweet  human 
way  that  would  have  startled  and  perhaps 
shocked  the  primitives.  How  much  of  this 
was  heartfelt  and  how  much  the  result  of  imi- 
tation we  cannot  say.  Doubtless  he  received 
a  religious  training  in  his  youth ;  but  he  was  a 
faun  from  the  Grecian  woodland  on  whose  soul 
the  teachings  of  the  church  could  make  little 
impression,  and  year  by  year  we  see  its  influ- 
ence weakening  and  the  pagan  joy  of  life  and 
love  of  carnal  beauty  reasserting  themselves 
more  strongly.  The  greater  number  of  his 
mythological  pictures  were  painted  in  his  last 
days,  when  he  had  abandoned  the  work  in  the 
Parma  Cathedral  in  disgust,  and  had  returned 
to  his  native  town.  And  as  his  genius  was 


144  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

essentially  pagan,  the  further  he  wanders  from 
the  ascetic  spirit  of  mediaeval  Christianity  the 
more  striking  and  beautiful  his  works  become. 
There  was  in  him  no  revolt  against  mediaeval 
devotion  as  in  some  of  his  contemporaries.  It 
never  had  a  firm  hold  upon  him,  and  he  merely 
slips  away  from  it.  He  was  like  some  lovely 
bird  of  paradise  which  we  capture  in  the  nest 
and  seek  to  tame,  but  which  when  its  wings 
are  grown  flies  back  to  its  glad  life  of  free- 
dom among  the  golden  flowers  of  its  native 
forest. 

When  at  his  maturity,  his  religious  and  his 
mythological  subjects  are  treated  in  very  much 
the  same  spirit.  He  humanizes  religious  feel- 
ing and  spiritualizes  sensual  passion  until  there 
is  no  great  difference  between  them.  The  St. 
John  the  Baptist  of  the  "  St.  George  "  picture 
is  a  faun  straight  from  the  Grecian  forests,  and 
there  was  never  a  more  charming  representa- 
tion of  Cupid  in  his  youthful  prime  than  the 
St.  Sebastian  who  looks  on  at  the  mystic 
marriage  of  St.  Catherine  in  the  Louvre.  On 
the  other  hand  there  is  nothing  gross  in  the 
ecstasy  of  his  "  Danae  "  or  "  lo."  The  joy  of 


CORREGGIO  145 

love  was  never  depicted  with  more  realistic 
truth  or  more  exquisite  refinement.  And  the 
child  angels  that  are  strewn  over  the  "Assump- 
tion "  and  "  Ascension  "  like  flowers  upon  a 
meadow,  tumbling  upon  the  clouds,  or  peeping 
out  from  between  the  legs  of  the  Apostles,  are 
conceived  in  exactly  the  same  mood  as  the 
boys  who  attend  "  Diana  "  in  the  chase. 

Like  Michelangelo  he  is  a  painter  purely  of 
the  imagination,  though  his  visions  are  simple 
and  joyous  while  Michelangelo's  are  complex 
and  mournful;  and  like  him  he  made  no  por- 
traits, not  even  his  own,  so  that  we  know  not 
how  he  looked.  His  figures  spring  like  Mi- 
nerva from  his  creative  brain,  and  have  no  pro- 
totypes on  earth.  They  are  superhuman  in 
blitheness  as  in  beauty,  and  yet  so  vivid  is  his 
imagination  and  so  great  his  artistic  power  that 
they  are  projected  upon  the  canvas  or  the  wall 
with  an  intensity  of  realism  that  would  do 
honor  to  the  Dutch.  Our  reason  tells  us  that 
such  beings  never  existed  in  this  sad  world, 
but  we  sympathize  with  Guido,  who  always 
asked  those  who  had  seen  the  "  Madonna  with 
St.  George  "  since  he  had  seen  it,  if  the  chil- 


146  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

dren  were  still  in  the  picture,  and  if  they  had 
not  grown  up. 

His  name  has  become  a  synonym  for  light 
and  shade.  No  Italian  artist  ever  equalled 
him  in  that  respect,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether 
Rembrandt  himself  surpassed  him,  though 
their  methods  are  so  different  that  an  intelli- 
gent comparison  is  hard  to  make.  Like  Rem- 
brandt's, his  shadows  are  not  opaque,  but 
luminous,  suffused  through  and  through  with 
light,  just  as  in  nature — a  thing  so  difficult  of 
achievement  that  it  has  been  accomplished  in 
a  satisfactory  manner  by  few.  None  of  his 
predecessors  save  Leonardo  and  Dosso  had 
any  considerable  skill  in  chiaroscuro,  yet  Cor- 
reggio  in  his  earliest  works  reveals  himself  a 
master  of  the  art,  though  a  master  who  con- 
tinually improves.  It  is  incredible  that  so 
young  a  man  should  have  conquered  its  com- 
plexities unaided,  and  we  are  driven  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  must  have  seen  some  of 
Leonardo's  works  and  perhaps  studied  under 
Dosso. 

And  as  a  result  of  his  mastery  of  light  and 
shade,  his  figures  are  bathed  in  atmosphere. 


CORREGGIO  147 

They  are  not  standing  in  a  vacuum  like  those 
of  the  primitives;  the  air  circles  round  them, 
full  of  light,  and  they  stand  out  in  a  luminous 
medium  as  in  nature. 

The  Florentine  masters  usually  practised 
both  painting  and  sculpture,  with  the  result 
that  their  sculpture  is  frequently  pictorial,  as 
in  the  case  of  Ghiberti,  their  painting  always 
somewhat  sculptural,  standing  out  in  bold  re- 
lief, with  strongly  marked  outlines.  But  Cor- 
reggio  and  the  Venetians  are  painters  and 
nothing  else,  and  the  luminous,  palpitating 
vitality  of  color  finds  its  most  perfect  expres- 
sion in  their  works. 

As  a  colorist  he  must  be  numbered  with  the 
greatest.  His  color  has  not  the  glowing  splen- 
dor of  Venice,  but  in  transparent  lustre  it  is 
unexcelled.  It  has  been  well  described  as  a 
clarification  of  Leonardo's. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  be  a  great  colorist  in 
fresco.  The  system  is  suited  to  works  of  mon- 
umental or  primitive  simplicity,  and  is  not 
conducive  to  brilliancy,  depth,  or  delicate 
gradations.  It  was  rarely  employed  by  the 
great  masters  of  color,  the  Venetians.  Titian 


148  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

tried  it  at  Padua,  but  without  adding  anything 
to  his  fame.  Leonardo  was  so  dissatisfied  with 
it  that  he  mixed  his  fresco  paints  with  oil,  and 
so  destroyed  them  ;  while  the  colors  of  Michel- 
angelo are  so  inconspicuous  that  they  are 
scarcely  thought  of.  Raphael  himself  seldom 
reached  great  eminence  in  frescoed  color, 
though  in  some  of  his  compositions,  particu- 
larly the  "  Miracle  of  Bolsena,"  his  success  is 
undeniable.  But  it  was  reserved  to  Correggio 
to  give  to  fresco  the  splendor  and  transparency 
of  oil,  and  to  produce  with  it  those  subtle 
effects  of  light  and  shade  in  pursuit  of  which 
Leonardo  had  sacrificed  the  durability  of  his 
most  precious  works. 

In  the  painting  of  the  delicate  flesh  of  women 
and  children  even  Titian  and  Veronese  must 
own  Correggio's  pre-eminence.  The  finest 
piece  of  flesh  painting  in  the  world  is  probably 
his  "  Antiope  "  of  the  Louvre.  The  satiny 
sheen,  the  dainty  tenderness,  the  rich,  soft 
flesh-tints  of  a  youthful  nymph  could  not  be 
better  rendered.  It  seems  living  flesh,  with  the 
warm  blood  coursing  through  the  veins  as  she 
lies  there  dreaming  of  love  upon  her  mossy  bank. 


CORREGGIO  149 

This  picture  of  Correggio's  and  Titian's  in 
the  same  gallery  dealing  with  the  same  sub- 
ject afford  a  rare  opportunity  of  contrasting 
their  styles,  which  have  so  much  in  common 
and  yet  are  so  diverse.  Titian's  gives  an  ex- 
tended landscape,  while  Correggio's  reveals 
only  enough  of  the  background  to  show  that 
the  scene  takes  place  in  the  forest  depths. 
Titian's  Antiope  is  stronger,  healthier,  and 
lies  in  an  attitude  of  graceful  repose,  full  of 
dignity  even  as  she  sleeps.  The  posture  of 
Correggio's  is  violently  foreshortened,  with  the 
knees  projecting  straight  toward  the  spectator, 
and  her  light  slumbers  are  haunted  by  amorous 
dreams.  But  the  greatest  contrast  is  in  the 
satyrs.  Titian's  is  the  perfect  blending  of  the 
goat  and  man,  exactly  such  a  creature  as  would 
be  produced  by  such  a  union.  The  goat's 
legs,  the  hairy  body,  and  the  low,  sensual,  cun- 
ning physiognomy  are  just  what  we  should  ex- 
pect in  a  real  satyr.  Such  a  creature  would  be 
content  with  himself  and  assured  of  his  own 
perfection.  But  the  satyr  of  Correggio  is  a 
beautiful  monster.  There  are  the  hairy  legs 
of  a  genuine  goat,  but  the  head  is  one  of  the 


ISO  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

most  beautiful  ever  painted,  as  lovely  as  the 
"  Eros  "  of  Praxiteles,  as  the  vision  that  ap- 
peared to  Psyche  when  she  lit  the  fatal  lamp 
to  gaze  upon  the  sleeping  Cupid.  Such  a 
creature  would  have  died  of  mortification  had 
he  looked  down  at  his  hideous  shanks.  The  ex- 
pression of  their  faces,  too,  is  widely  different. 
Titian's  satyr  shows  only  the  animal  satis- 
faction of  a  bestial  nature,  while  Correggio's  is 
quivering  with  jubilant  love.  Yet  it  is  not 
certain  that  Titian's  is  the  juster  rendering  of 
the  subject.  If  it  were  only  a  common  satyr 
surprising  a  nymph,  there  could  be  no  doubt 
of  Titian's  superiority ;  but  when  we  remember 
that  it  was  great  Jove  himself  in  this  disguise, 
it  is  quite  probable  that  Correggio's  picture 
interprets  more  faithfully  the  true  significance 
of  the  scene.  Then  we  see  divine  beauty  re- 
vealed in  spite  of  its  disguise,  and  the  god, 
knowing  that  the  travesty  can  be  cast  off  at 
pleasure,  is  not  ashamed  of  the  ugly  shanks 
and  cloven  hoofs.  But  the  two  pictures  show 
well  the  difference  between  the  realistic  and 
human  beauty  of  Titian  and  the  ideal,  super- 
mundane beauty  of  Correggio. 


CORREGGIO  151 

From  someone,  doubtless  Mantegna,  Cor- 
reggio  early  acquired  a  taste  for  the  problems 
of  foreshortening,  and  attained  such  a  profi- 
ciency in  it  that  he  remained  unrivalled  until 
Michelangelo  painted  the  "  Last  Judgment." 
And  as  with  Michelangelo,  his  extraordinary 
skill  led  to  its  abuse,  so  that  he  sometimes 
painted  figures  merely  to  test  his  powers,  plac- 
ing them  in  violent  postures  where  they  seem 
attitudinizing  and  in  points  of  view  from  which 
they  appear  contorted.  Extreme  power  is 
always  apt  to  be  pushed  to  exaggeration,  but 
in  Correggio's  behalf  it  must  be  said  that 
Michelangelo  in  his  later  days  departed  further 
from  the  modesty  of  Nature  than  he  has  ever 
done. 

In  the  handling  of  great  masses  Correggio 
has  no  superior.  It  would  be  vain  to  seek 
elsewhere  for  a  composition  so  vast  and  so 
united  as  the  "  Assumption  of  the  Madonna  " 
that  fills  the  dome  of  the  Cathedral  at  Parma. 
It  is  not  a  complicated  harmony ;  it  is  a  thou- 
sand voices  singing  together  a  jubilant  paeon  of 
ecstatic  joy.  The  Virgin  rises  into  heaven  in 
a  quivering  transport  of  triumphant  exultation, 


152  RENAISSANCE   MASTERS 

and  all  the  apostles  and  the  heavenly  host  join 
in  a  chorus  of  rapture  that  borders  upon  frenzy. 
For  the  first  time  save  in  his  majestic  frescoes 
in  San  Giovanni  the  architectural  framework  of 
the  dome  is  disregarded,  and  we  look  straight 
upward  into  heaven.  At  the  first  glance  the 
countless  legs  of  the  ascending  angels  seen 
through  the  billowy  clouds  of  light  produce  a 
singular  effect;  but  as  we  continue  to  gaze 
upon  the  prodigious  sweep  and  whirl  of  the 
mighty  throng  the  wonderful  realism  of  the 
scene  grows  upon  us,  the  world  around  is 
forgotten,  and  we  seem  to  behold  heaven  in 
all  its  glory  opened  before  our  eyes.  It  is  a 
bold  experiment,  one  of  those  daring  attempts 
which  must  find  their  justification  in  success. 
It  fascinated  his  followers,  who  continually 
imitated  it,  but  it  remains  alone  as  the  one 
perfect  achievement  of  its  kind. 

He  loved  most  the  beauty  of  women,  youths, 
and  children,  but  "The  Apostles"  of  San 
Giovanni's  dome  are  among  the  grandest  types 
of  manhood  that  art  can  offer.  Perhaps  the 
thing  in  which  he  was  most  deficient  was  in 
capacity  to  represent  the  withering  effects  of 


CORREGGIO  153 

age.  Youth  was  his  domain.  He  may  give 
to  his  old  men  silver  locks  and  flowing  beards, 
but  their  eyes  remain  bright  and  their  cheeks 
rounded,  so  that  they  do  not  really  look  old. 

Correggio  inspired  in  the  breast  of  Toschi  a 
devotion  that  has  no  parallel  in  the  history  of 
art,  and  the  great  engraver  devoted  his  long 
life  to  reproducing  the  master's  works.  In  this 
way  we  are  able  to  enjoy  portions  of  the  fres- 
coes which  have  been  so  injured  by  damp  and 
dirt  as  to  be  invisible  or  incomprehensible  from 
below.  In  the  translation  from  the  poetry  of 
color  to  the  engraving's  prose  there  has  been 
necessarily  a  change — no  work  can  pass  through 
another's  hand  and  brain  and  remain  unaltered. 
Something  of  the  dithyrambic  ecstasy  of  the 
originals  has  been  lost,  something  of  academic 
neatness  has  been  added.  Still  the  result  is  a 
triumph  of  the  engraver's  art  and  a  boon  for 
which  the  world  must  remain  forever  indebted. 

One  of  the  first  duties  of  modern  criticism 
was  to  relieve  Correggio  from  responsibility  for 
a  multitude  of  unworthy  pictures  attributed  to 
him  by  an  uncritical  age.  Many  of  them  were 
by  feeble  imitators  like  Parmigianino  and  An- 


154  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

selmi,  and  had  something  of  his  manner,  while 
others  bore  no  resemblance  to  his  work.  They 
were  simply  clouds  that  obscured  his  fame,  and 
now  that  they  have  been  dispersed  his  star 
shines  with  a  clearer  lustre.  Among  them, 
however,  was  one  whose  loss  we  must  all  de- 
plore, the  famous  '  Reading  Magdalen." 
Since  Morelli  called  attention  to  the  absence 
in  it  of  the  qualities  of  Correggio's  style  it  has 
been  abandoned  by  all  authoritative  critics  save 
M.  Muntz,  and  even  he  dares  not  be  positive. 
It  is  apparently  the  work  of  a  later  age ;  but  it 
is  with  reluctance  that  we  give  it  up  and  con- 
fess that  we  do  not  know  by  whose  hand  the 
dainty  marvel  was  wrought.  It  is  a  lovely 
little  jewel  taken  from  Correggio's  crown — a 
jewel  that  never  belonged  there,  but  which  he 
had  worn  so  long  that  we  regret  to  see  it  go. 

He  is  perhaps  the  equal  of  Titian  in  depict- 
ing the  beauty  of  woman ;  and  in  his  style  there 
is  more  of  tenderness  and  refinement.  He 
never  degenerates  into  the  insipid  elegance  of 
his  imitators,  but  his  female  types  are  so  ex- 
quisite that  even  the  lovely  patricians  whom 
Titian  delights  to  paint  seem  too  voluptuous 


CORREGGIO  155 

and  strong  when  placed  beside  them.  Like 
Titian's,  his  Madonnas  are  only  women,  but 
women  of  such  charming  grace  that  they  are 
almost  worthy  of  adoration.  And  he  has 
Leonardo's  fondness  for  hair,  and  a  nearly 
equal  skill  in  representing  its  waving,  fluffy 
lustre. 

Like  Michelangelo,  he  was  one  of  the  great 
factors  in  the  decline  of  art.  After  his  death 
countless  imitators  thought  that  they  must 
paint  laughing  children  and  wriggling  legs, 
with  which  they  filled  half  the  domes  of  Italy ; 
but  that  was  no  fault  of  his.  They  carried  his 
qualities  to  the  same  exaggeration  to  which 
Bernini  carried  the  mannerisms  of  Michel- 
angelo, but  the  irresistible  impulse  of  weaklings 
to  imitate  the  play  of  giants  is  as  inevitable  as 
it  is  unfortunate.  Many  a  modest  painter  who 
might  have  been  a  worthy  disciple  of  Francia 
or  Perugino  was  ruined  in  his  vain  effort  to 
follow  Michelangelo  and  Correggio  in  their 
audacious  flight. 

He  is  the  most  emotional  of  painters.  All 
his  figures  feel  intensely.  The  sentiment 
which  he  usually  prefers  is  joy,  but  sorrow, 


156  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

when  it  is  expressed  at  all,  is  expressed  with 
the  same  vehemence.  But  his  emotions  are 
never  complicated  or  difficult  of  apprehension. 
They  are  as  simple  as  those  of  childhood,  ut- 
tered with  as  little  reserve,  and  weighted  with 
as  little  thought. 

He  and  Leonardo  are  the  painters  of  smiles, 
but  in  what  a  different  way  !  Leonardo  sur- 
prises the  soul  upon  the  lips — souls  of  wonder- 
ful depth  and  unspeakable  complexity,  and 
fixes  them  there  forever  as  a  riddle  that  no  man 
can  read.  Sorrow  and  hope  and  joy,  unutter- 
able passions  and  unavowed  desires  are  in  that 
smile,  while  Correggio's  have  all  the  wanton 
happiness  of  childhood,  only  raised  to  a  super- 
human pitch. 

It  is  this  want  of  depth  that  debars  Correggio 
from  the  highest  place.  All  other  qualities  of 
his  art — beauty  and  color  and  light  and  shade, 
strength  and  movement  and  composition — are 
united  in  him  as  perhaps  in  no  other;  but  he 
lacks  Raphael's  serene  wisdom  and  the  depth 
of  those  who  have  passed  through  the  Valley 
of  the  Shadow  of  Death  and  drained  the  bitter 
cup.  Joy  is  good,  but  he  who  has  tasted  only 


CORREGGIO  157 

its  honeyed  draught  knows  not  the  fulness  of 
our  mortal  life;  and  Correggio's  works  lack 
that  poignant  fascination  which  an  acquaint- 
ance with  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow  alone  can 
give. 

During  the  eighteenth  century  he  was  the 
most  esteemed  of  painters.  It  was  an  age  of 
super-refinement  and  elegance,  when  the  nobil- 
ity had  become  courtiers  and  passed  their  but- 
terfly lives  in  exquisite  enjoyments,  scarcely 
conscious  of  the  vast,  hungry,  suffering  multi- 
tudes whose  existence  was  to  be  revealed  by 
the  lurid  flames  of  the  French  Revolution. 
To  that  polished  and  effeminate  society  the 
works  of  Correggio  seemed  the  highest  ideal 
of  perfection.  And  even  now  as  we  stand  be- 
fore them,  their  fascination  is  so  great  that  we 
can  hardly  restrain  ourselves  from  concurring 
in  this  judgment. 

We  see  in  him  a  boldness  of  drawing  and 
foreshortening  worthy  of  Michelangelo,  a 
genius  for  composition  that  Raphael  alone  can 
surpass,  color  not  so  glowing  as  Titian's,  but 
of  a  marvellous  lustre  and  transparency,  a 
mastery  of  light  and  shade  that  only  Rem- 


158  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

brandt  can  rival,  and  a  sweet  joyousness  that 
has  never  been  seen  on  earth  since  the  mighty 
voice  was  heard  off  Paxos  proclaiming  the  death 
of  Pan.  While  we  look  at  him  we  cannot  con- 
fess that  another  is  his  superior,  and  it  is  only 
when  we  have  left  him  and  our  enthusiasm  has 
had  time  to  cool  that  a  still,  small  voice  whis- 
pers in  our  ears  that,  great  as  he  is,  Leonardo, 
Michelangelo,  Raphael  and  Titian  are  greater 
still. 


BOTTICELLI 
(1446-1510) 

IT  is  very  difficult  to  write  impartially  of 
Botticelli.  Those  whom  he  pleases  at  all 
are  apt  to  love  him  to  excess,  and  see  in  his 
works  all  possible  and  impossible  perfections ; 
while  those  who  are  not  touched  by  his  peculiar 
charm  are  disposed  to  look  upon  him  as  merely 
quaint  and  curious.  The  truth  lies  between 
these  two  extremes.  He  is  not  a  great  master 
like  Raphael  and  Leonardo,  but  he  has  a 
singular  and  personal  fascination  that  marks 
him  as  one  apart,  and  gives  him  a  niche  in  the 
temple  of  fame  that  is  all  his  own.  His  works 
are  like  certain  music  that  strikes  a  responsive 
chord  only  in  particular  hearts,  but  a  chord 
that  vibrates  with  an  intense  and  special  har- 
mony. He  who  has  caught  its  singular  charm 
has  a  joy  of  his  own  forever,  but  he  must  not 
159 


l6o  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

blame  his  neighbor  upon  whose  ear  it  jars. 
Every  man  who  is  not  abnormal  appreciates 
Raphael ;  but  one  has  to  be  somewhat  out  of 
the  ordinary  to  experience  the  full  attraction 
of  Botticelli's  work.  He  speaks  to  an  elect 
circle,  whose  members  are  prone  to  worship 
him  with  idolatrous  devotion,  and  to  regard  as 
boors  the  profane  who  reject  their  idol. 

No  artist  has  had  greater  vicissitudes  of 
fame.  In  his  prime  he  was  the  favorite  painter 
of  the  brilliant  court  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnifi- 
cent, but  with  the  death  of  his  illustrious  patron 
he  sank  under  the  influence  of  Savonarola,  so 
inimical  to  his  genius,  and  in  his  old  age  he 
was  eclipsed  by  the  glories  of  Leonardo, 
Michelangelo,  and  Raphael.  He  was  almost 
forgotten  when  at  length  he  passed  away  in 
poverty  and  neglect,  and  he  seemed  consigned 
to  hopeless  oblivion  when  Mr.  Ruskin  and  the 
English  pre-Raphaelites  proclaimed  his  great- 
ness and  made  him  the  object  of  a  cult  that  is 
extending  every  day.  His  pictures,  little 
prized  forty  years  ago,  are  now  sought  for  with 
infinite  eagerness,  and  are  numbered  among 
the  most  precious  gems  of  the  richest  galleries. 


BOTTICELLI  l6l 

Those  who  do  not  feel  their  charm  regard  this 
sudden  fame  as  sentimental  and  factitious,  born 
without  reason  and  destined  to  a  speedy  de- 
cay ;  while  his  votaries  wonder  that  his  position 
among  the  highest  should  ever  have  been  denied. 

Both  are  wrong.  He  cannot  be  numbered 
with  the  supreme  masters,  but  he  gives  a 
peculiar  form  of  aesthetic  pleasure  that  no  one 
else  can  give,  and  now  that  we  are  awakened 
to  its  enjoyment,  it  is  not  likely  that  his  works 
will  ever  again  sink  into  oblivion. 

In  fact,  he  is  especially  the  painter  of  our 
age,  of  an  age  that  lives  upon  its  nerves  and  is 
deficient  in  the  placid  strength  of  earlier  days. 
He  is  the  painter  of  the  nerves,  as  Michel- 
angelo is  the  painter  of  the  muscles  and  Titian 
of  the  flesh.  In  all  his  pictures,  pagan  or  re- 
ligious, the  type  is  nervous,  quivering,  restless, 
palpitating  with  feeling,  incapable  of  repose. 
They  are  all  neurotic ;  not  to  the  point  of  dis- 
ease, but  beyond  the  limits  of  normal  health. 
The  women  that  he  loves  to  paint  are  delicate 
hothouse  flowers,  rare  orchids  and  sensitive 
plants  that  know  not  the  sunlight  and  the  rain. 
They  are  very  lovely,  and  they  have  the  tender 


1 62  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

charm  of  those  fragile  beings  whose  heads  are 
bowed  with  the  weight  of  impending  doom. 

They  are  enchanting,  but  they  are  not  beau- 
tiful. Their  faces  are  irregular,  often  with  high 
cheek-bones  and  hollow  cheeks,  and  frequently 
their  expression  is  one  of  poignant  sadness. 
Yet  perhaps  it  is  wrong  to  deny  them  beauty. 
They  do  not  conform  to  our  standard,  to  the 
standard  that  has  been  bequeathed  to  us  by 
Raphael's  harmonious  genius.  But  according 
to  other  standards  they  may  be  perfect.  They 
are  purely  mediaeval.  If  they  had  been  pro- 
duced in  the  depths  of  the  Middle  Ages  men 
would  have  hailed  them  as  a  divine  revelation, 
and  would  have  considered  them  immeasurably 
finer  than  the  master  works  of  Greece.  Every 
age  has  its  own  standards  which  it  deems  in- 
fallible, and  the  type  created  by  Botticelli  does 
not  conform  to  our  ideals.  It  belongs  to 
another  world  more  delicate,  more  exquisite, 
less  healthy  and  practical  than  ours. 

One  reason  of  the  high  regard  in  which  he  is 
now  held  is  the  prevailing  practice  of  studying 
art  historically.  No  artist  represents  so  per- 
fectly a  particular  moment  in  history.  He 


BOTTICELLI  163 

stands  at  the  exact  point  where  the  mediaeval 
is  aspiring  toward  the  classical  with  infinite  but 
ineffectual  desire.  In  him  the  Middle  Age 
stretches  out  its  arms  with  unutterable  yearn- 
ing toward  the  goddess  of  Grecian  beauty 
rising  again  resplendent  from  the  sea,  but  she 
still  eludes  its  grasp.  He  belongs  to  the  time 
when  men  kept  lamps  burning  before  the  bust 
of  Plato  as  before  the  Virgin's  shrine,  yet 
failed  to  grasp  the  essence  of  Hellenic  culture. 
In  a  little  while  the  full  day  is  to  burst  upon 
them,  revealing  shapes  of  classic  purity  that 
are  to  be  preserved  by  Raphael's  and  by 
Titian's  brush.  But  Botticelli's  contempo- 
raries are  still  in  the  early  dawn,  lit  up  by  a 
dim  and  misty  light  through  which  the  radiant 
forms  of  the  Grecian  goddesses  look  thin  and 
pale.  They  scarcely  see  their  shapes  at  all, 
but  they  know  that  they  are  there,  and  in  try- 
ing to  give  them  a  corporeal  form  Botticelli 
recurs  for  models  to  the  delicate,  unhealthy 
types  of  mediaeval  beauty  which  he  already 
knows ;  and  it  is  as  if  some  slender  nun  brought 
up  in  the  shadow  of  the  cloister  should  attempt 
to  rise  with  Phryne  from  the  sea. 


1 64  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

In  his  work  we  are  most  powerfully  attracted 
by  this  yearning  of  the  Middle  Age  for  the  fair 
Grecian  land — this  love  of  the  pine  tree  for  the 
palm  which  it  cannot  see,  but  of  whose  beauty 
it  has  heard,  and  of  which  it  has  formed  grace- 
ful misconceptions  based  upon  a  study  of  the 
ferns  that  grow  about  its  feet.  The  most 
popular  of  his  pictures  are  the  "  Birth  of 
Venus"  in  the  Uffizi  and  the  "  Spring"  in 
the  Florentine  Academy.  And  they  are  justly 
so,  for  in  them  we  see  the  very  essence  of 
Botticelli's  genius.  They  are  among  the  most 
fascinating  pictures  ever  painted.  Their  spirit 
is  purely  mediaeval,  but  with  what  ineffable 
desire  does  it  yearn  toward  the  beautiful  shores 
of  Greece!  And  how  unavailingly !  In  the 
"  Parnassus  "  Raphael  transports  us  to  the 
Hellenic  mountains;  in  the  "Galatea"  we 
float  with  him  upon  the  sparkling  waves  of  the 
blue  -/Egean.  But  Botticelli  knows  them  not. 
In  his  search  for  Hellas  he  wanders  far  astray, 
and  leads  us  to  an  enchanted  land  where  the 
fairies  dance  upon  flowers  that  their  footsteps 
do  not  crush.  He  shows  us  Venus  again,  not 
as  she  landed  in  all  the  pride  of  her  beauty 


BOTTICELLI  165 

upon  the  shores  of  Cyprus,  but  as  she  emerged 
from  the  Venusberg,  grown  slender  and  pale 
in  her  long  seclusion,  with  softly  rounded  limbs 
whose  muscles  have  disappeared  for  want  of 
use,  and  in  whose  eyes  is  the  sad,  wistful  gaze 
that  speaks  of  the  infinite  longing  for  the 
moonlit  valleys  and  sun-kissed  mountains  of 
her  native  land  that  has  grown  up  during  the 
centuries  of  her  northern  exile.  It  is  a  world 
that  has  never  existed  save  in  the  imagination 
of  mediaeval  dreamers,  a  sweet  fairyland  of 
delicate  and  delicious  fancies.  In  his  works  we 
see  what  the  men  of  the  early  Renaissance  im- 
agined Greece  to  be,  just  as  in  his  illustrations 
of  Dante — so  different  from  the  pictures  that 
we  owe  to  Flaxman's  classic  genius  or  to  the 
unbridled  imagination  of  Dor£ — we  probably 
have  a  much  nearer  approach  to  the  visions 
that  arose  before  the  poet  and  his  contempo- 
raries than  any  that  we  can  attain  elsewhere. 
His  works  are  precious  documents  that  enable 
us  to  understand  the  workings  of  the  human 
mind  as  words  can  never  do,  which  reveal  to 
us  the  Middle  Age  standing  upon  tiptoe  and 
peering  with  unspeakable  longing  through  the 


1 66  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

morning's  gilded  mists  toward  the  fair  shapes 
that  are  dimly  seen  beyond  the  veil. 

Historically  Botticelli  is  of  the  first  impor- 
tance, and  as  an  artist  he  has  merits  of  a  high 
order. 

Though  one  of  the  worst  anatomists,  he  is 
one  of  the  greatest  draughtsmen  of  the  Renais- 
sance. This  may  seem  a  contradiction  in  terms 
when  applied  to  a  painter  who  dealt  so  largely 
with  the  nude,  yet  it  is  true.  The  anatomy 
of  his  figures  is  usually  wretched.  There  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  the  poor  diet,  the 
imperfect  sanitation,  the  want  of  cleanliness 
and  the  general  misery  of  the  Middle  Ages  had 
a  most  deleterious  effect  upon  the  human 
frame,  and  that  the  average  man  and  woman 
of  mediaeval  days  was  far  from  beautiful.  In 
Botticelli's  time  but  few  of  the  masterpieces  of 
antique  art  had  been  rescued  from  the  clay. 
The  Middle  Age  had  looked  upon  the  body  as 
unclean,  and  had  rarely  represented  it  save  in 
ghastly  crucifixions;  but  with  the  revival  of 
Greek  learning  came  a  new  interest  in  the 
human  figure,  and  men  turned  again  to  its 
representation.  But  they  sought  for  models 


BOTTICELLI  l6? 

among  those  about  them,  and  sometimes  with 
as  little  discrimination  as  Botticelli  displayed 
in  the  selection  of  the  "  Mars  "  of  the  National 
Gallery  or  the  youth  dragged  by  the  hair  in  the 
"  Calumny  "  of  the  Uffizi,  with  their  emaciated 
limbs;  and  doubtless  a  part  of  Botticelli's  de- 
fective anatomy  is  due  to  the  imperfections  of 
his  models.  But  Nature  never  made  such 
shapes  as  some  of  those  that  he  has  drawn, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  they  could  have 
held  together  if  they  had  been  created.  Either 
he  was  ignorant  of  anatomy,  or  utterly  in- 
different to  its  requirements. 

Yet  he  is  one  of  the  greatest  masters  of  the 
single  line  that  ever  lived.  He  treats  the 
human  body  simply  as  a  pattern  for  a  living 
arabesque.  As  a  lineal  decorator  he  stands 
supreme.  In  point  of  color  he  is  perhaps  the 
best  of  the  Florentine  school,  sometimes  bright, 
usually  harmonious,  nearly  always  charming. 
Yet  he  subordinates  coloring  so  thoroughly  to 
the  line  that  his  pictures  have  been  described 
as  tinted  drawings.  The  tendency  of  color  is 
usually  toward  the  obliteration  of  the  outline. 
With  him  it  serves  only  to  accentuate  it.  In 


1 68  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

these  days  when  it  is  the  fashion  to  confound 
the  distinction  between  the  arts,  his  pictures 
may  be  described  as  symphonies  of  lines.  And 
all  of  them  are  lines  of  grace.  Such  harmoni- 
ous curves  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  else- 
where. Frequently  they  are  false  to  nature, 
an  outrage  upon  the  human  anatomy,  and  to 
appreciate  them  we  must  forget  how  men  are 
made,  and  look  upon  them  merely  as  parts  of 
an  arabesque  design.  We  shall  then  perceive 
that  as  lineal  decorations  they  are  endowed 
with  a  wonderful  beauty. 

Another  merit  which  he  possesses  in  an 
extraordinary  degree  is  the  presentation  of 
movement.  His  figures  are  all  in  motion  or 
ready  to  move.  It  is  not  a  strong  movement 
dependent  upon  muscular  power,  it  is  the 
light,  quick,  graceful  movement  whose  seat  is 
in  the  nerves.  His  walking  figures  nearly  all 
rest  lightly  on  the  ball  of  the  foot  in  a  position 
that  they  could  not  retain  for  a  moment.  They 
are  like  instantaneous  photographs  taken  when 
motion  is  at  the  highest  point  of  its  curve.  And 
this  motion  is  always  graceful.  However  bad 
the  figures  may  be  in  point  of  anatomy,  they 


BOTTICELLI  169 

always  move  with  an  exquisite  rhythm.  In- 
deed, the  grace  of  their  movements  is  enhanced 
by  their  very  imperfection.  When  we  see  mo- 
tion in  a  body  of  perfect  outline,  its  grace  is 
only  what  we  expect,  and  our  attention  is 
attracted  most  by  the  plastic  beauty  of  the 
form  itself.  But  when  we  see  these  thin,  ill- 
drawn  bodies  moving  so  gracefully,  it  strikes 
us  with  all  the  force  of  a  surprise,  and  there 
being  no  plastic  loveliness  to  charm  the  eye, 
we  surrender  ourselves  entirely  to  the  sense  of 
grace.  By  making  the  forms  attenuated  and 
unattractive  he  gives  us  the  very  essence  of 
movement.  We  feel  that  he  would  be  de- 
lighted if  he  could  express  it  entirely  disem- 
bodied. 

And  this  he  almost  does  through  the  agency 
of  the  wind.  He  is  the  painter  of  the  breeze. 
In  his  pictures  it  blows  continually,  sometimes 
quaintly  represented  as  issuing  from  the  wind- 
god's  mouth,  sometimes  as  only  revealed  in 
the  flutter  of  garments — not  the  horrible  ba- 
roque flutter  with  which  Bernini  has  made  us 
all  familiar,  but  a  flutter  in  which  is  expressed 
all  the  buoyant  joy  and  vitality  of  the  zephyr. 


1 70  RENAISSANCE   MASTERS 

No  one  has  ever  depicted  so  faithfully  or  so 
daintily  the  effects  of  the  breeze  playing  with 
a  woman's  vestments. 

And  what  vestments  they  are!  Sometimes 
heavy,  sometimes  light,  sometimes  mere  gauzy 
draperies  that  only  serve  to  enhance  the  rhyth- 
mic grace  of  the  moving  limbs,  they  fall  or 
flutter  in  delightful  folds,  and  are  usually 
adorned  with  those  delicious  embroideries 
which  were  only  produced  in  their  perfection 
during  the  Middle  Ages,  when  time  was  a 
matter  of  no  importance,  and  when  a  handmaid 
would  spend  years  in  the  beautifying  of  a  gar- 
ment as  a  monk  would  pass  his  life  in  the  illu- 
mination of  a  missal.  Embroideries  so  fanciful 
or  so  charming  have  never  been  depicted  by 
the  brush.  And  however  classical  the  subject, 
if  it  is  clothed  at  all,  it  is  in  these  quaintly 
beautiful  draperies  of  the  Middle  Ages  un- 
dreamed of  by  the  Greeks. 

He  was  the  painter  of  small  groups  and  of 
single  figures.  In  a  large  field  he  lost  himself. 
His  great  frescoes  in  the  Sistine  Chapel  are 
charming  in  many  of  their  details,  but  the 
composition  is  confusing — a  confusion  height- 


BOTTICELLI  I/I 

ened  by  the  insertion  into  one  picture  of  suc- 
cessive episodes  of  the  same  story,  so  that  it  is 
only  with  great  labor  that  we  can  make  out 
the  meaning;  and  they  can  scarcely  be  said  to 
have  a  general  plan.  He  is  like  many  writers 
who  can  tell  a  short  story  well,  but  who  can- 
not handle  the  complicated  threads  of  a  long 
romance.  Within  his  narrow  limitations  his 
composition  is  pleasing,  but  when  he  attempts 
it  on  too  large  a  scale  we  see  that  he  has  over- 
passed his  powers. 

And  he  has  surprising  limitations.  Though 
he  spent  his  life  in  seeking  after  dainty  types, 
his  hands  and  feet  are  usually  coarse,  and  the 
way  in  which  he  sometimes  sought  to  indicate 
the  fruitfulness  of  Nature  is  so  gross  and  in- 
artistic that  it  is  inconceivable  that  so  exquisite 
a  painter  should  have  committed  such  a  blun- 
der. It  must  be  noted,  too,  that  he  was  almost 
indifferent  to  light  and  shade  at  a  time  when 
Leonardo  was  displaying  all  its  resources. 

He  was  a  great  lover  of  flowers,  and  painted 
them,  particularly  roses,  with  exceeding  skill. 
Usually  they  are  true  to  nature,  but  there  are 
some  of  them  that  have  no  prototypes  now  on 


172  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

earth,  and  which  were  probably  creations  of 
his  own  delicious  fancy.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  his  fondness  for  round  pictures  was  due  to 
his  love  of  flowers,  and  that  he  borrowed  the 
design  of  the  "  Crowned  Madonna"  from  a 
full-blown  rose. 

From  the  Middle  Ages  he  derived  a  fond- 
ness for  allegory,  and  like  a  good  many 
other  allegories  his  own  are  not  always  clear. 
The  one  single  exception  is  the  recently  dis- 
covered picture  of  "  Pallas  and  the  Centaur," 
and  this  was  probably  painted  under  the  im- 
mediate direction  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent, 
and  owes  its  comprehensibility  to  his  shrewd 
and  practical  genius.  No  more  delightful  alle- 
gory than  the  "  Spring  "  was  ever  painted,  but 
its  entire  meaning  can  never  be  deciphered, 
and,  indeed,  it  owes  a  part  of  its  charm  to  that 
very  fact.  If  we  understood  it  fully  it  might 
lose  in  interest.* 

He  is  the  most  feminine  of  all  painters,  and 
that  is  one  reason  why  he  so  appeals  to  an  age 
dominated  by  the  female  element.  He  paints 

*  It  seems  to  have  been  intended  to  illustrate  some  lines  of 
Lucretius,  which,  however,  do  not  fully  explain  it. 


BOTTICELLI  173 

men  sometimes,  but  rarely  with  entire  success, 
and  as  soon  as  possible  he  turns  away  to  the 
presentation  of  woman's  charm  and  grace. 
Vasari  informs  us  that  he  loved  to  paint  beau- 
tiful undraped  women,  but  the  iconoclastic 
frenzy  of  Savonarola,  which  has  obliterated  so 
many  traces  of  the  pagan  spirit  in  the  early 
Renaissance,  has  doubtless  robbed  us  of  most 
of  these.  Still  the  best  remain — those  which 
he  executed  for  the  Medici,  who  took  no  part 
in  the  mad  orgy  of  destruction  when  so  many 
priceless  treasures  were  cast  upon  the  bonfires 
in  the  Piazza  della  Signoria — and  from  them 
we  can  judge  the  type.  We  see  that  it  was 
not  woman's  plastic  beauty  that  he  loved,  but 
the  alluring  grace  of  her  airy  motion.  Only 
once  does  he  produce  a  form  of  exceeding  love- 
liness— the  new-born  Venus  that  floats  toward 
the  shore  in  the  pearly  shell.  And  she  is  not 
classically  beautiful.  She  has  never  known 
the  free  life  of  the  mountains  and  the  fields, 
her  bosom  has  never  throbbed  with  pagan  joy, 
her  limbs  have  never  been  strengthened  by 
wholesome  exercise.  She  has  been  brought 
up  in  the  shadow  of  some  dim  cloister,  wearied 


174  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

by  the  droning  of  unceasing  prayers,  and  now 
that  she  has  escaped  she  feels  no  exultant  rap- 
ture, and  in  her  nakedness  she  is  ashamed. 
The  maiden  upon  the  shore  rushes  with  a  richly 
embroidered  mantle  to  clothe  her  nudity,  and 
when  she  gets  the  robe  she  will  fold  it  around 
her  with  all  the  modesty  of  a  nun.  As  an  at- 
tempt to  represent  the  radiant  goddess  of  pagan 
love,  failure  could  scarcely  be  more  complete ; 
but  it  is  full  of  the  most  delicate  charm  of 
womanhood.  And  so,  too,  are  the  maidens  of 
the  "  Spring."  Ill-drawn  as  they  are,  they 
are  the  very  essence  of  dainty  grace. 

One  reason  that  Botticelli  is  so  attractive  is 
that  he  falls  so  far  short  of  what  he  attempts 
that  much  remains  for  the  play  of  the  imagina- 
tion. He  loves  to  tell  a  story,  but  he  tells  it 
imperfectly,  leaving  a  great  deal  for  fancy  to 
supply.  It  is  as  if  one  should  try  to  play  the 
Moonlight  Sonata  on  a  flute.  He  would  fail  in 
the  attempt,  but  he  might  draw  forth  sweet 
and  haunting  melodies  that  would  never  have 
been  heard  had  he  confined  himself  to  music 
appropriate  to  his  instrument. 

His  faces  are  as  irregular  in  their  outline  as 


BOTTICELLI  175 

his  forms ;  but  as  in  the  figures  it  is  the  grace 
and  not  the  shape  that  allures  us,  in  the  faces 
it  is  the  expression.  He  is  a  painter  of  the 
soul  of  woman,  not  in  its  unsounded  depths 
like  Leonardo,  but  in  its  delicate  refinement, 
its  melancholy  reveries,  its  sweet  sadness,  its 
wistful  longings.  If  Leonardo's  types  may  be 
compared  to  an  Alpine  lake  whose  smiling  sur- 
face conceals  unfathomed  depths,  his  may  be 
compared  to  a  lovely  brook  that  winds  in 
sinuous  curves,  never  very  deep,  but  full  of 
charming  grace.  Botticelli's  women  are  not 
profound ;  but  they  are  wholly  womanly,  with 
a  tender,  gentle  melancholy  that  is  the  same  in 
a  Venus  or  a  Madonna.  He  is  not  a  very  re- 
ligious painter,  nor  of  a  powerful  imagination. 
His  realm  is  one  of  delicious  fancy — perhaps 
the  most  refined  and  exquisite  in  all  the  range 
of  art.  In  his  yearning  for  Grecian  days  he 
wanders  far  from  his  purpose,  and  finds  him- 
self not  in  the  classic  land  of  Hellas,  but  in 
that  region  of  mediaeval  paganism  against 
which  the  church  waged  a  war  so  unrelenting 
and  so  unavailing.  It  might  crush  mind  and 
body,  but  at  times  the  human  soul  would  slip 


RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

its  fetters  and  escape  into  the  woodland  peopled 
by  elves  and  fairies  and  water-sprites,  sweet, 
tender  spirits  whose  joy  was  close  akin  to  sor- 
row. In  his  search  for  the  isles  of  Greece  it 
was  into  this  enchanted  land  of  fancy  that 
Botticelli  strayed,  while  he  thought  that  he 
was  wandering  through  Grecian  vales  and  by 
Castalian  springs. 

But  though  the  thing  that  charms  us  most 
is  the  sight  of  this  mediaeval  soul  rambling 
through  a  pagan  world  of  its  own  creation,  he 
has  produced  two  religious  works  that  are 
among  the  most  attractive  of  all  time,  the 
"  Crowned  Madonna"  of  the  Uffizi  and  the 
' '  Nativity  ' '  in  the  National  Gallery.  The  first, 
with  its  irregular  mediaeval  faces  that  are  yet  so 
beautiful,  so  full  of  wistful  melancholy,  is  one 
of  the  hardest  to  forget  of  all  the  pictures  of 
the  Virgin;  while  the  latter,  with  its  angels 
circling  in  the  air  as  graceful  as  butterflies,  is 
perhaps  the  daintiest  in  all  of  art's  domain. 
Neither  of  them  is  great,  but  there  are  those  who 
would  rather  surrender  many  a  grand  master- 
piece than  give  up  these  delicious  creations  of  a 
rare  fancy ;  and  their  choice  is  not  to  be  despised. 


BOTTICELLI  1/7 

He  is  one  of  the  most  poetical  of  all  painters, 
with  a  quaint,  sweet  poetry  that  we  love  some- 
times beyond  its  merits,  like  some  of  the  old 
lyrics  of  Elizabethan  and  Stuart  days,  so  naive, 
so  touching,  so  full  of  delicate  fancies  and  pleas- 
ing affectations,  and  possessed  of  a  haunting 
rhythm  and  a  delightful  freshness  that  can 
never  be  forgotten.  They,  too,  sing  of  Grecian 
gods  with  the  same  spirit  of  mediaeval  phan- 
tasy, striving  with  the  same  unsuccess  to  grasp 
the  spirit  of  Ovid  or  Theocritus.  The  painters 
of  his  day  were  mostly  realists,  but  Botticelli 
was  a  poet  and  a  dreamer,  living  apart  in  a 
fairyland  of  his  own  creation. 

There  is  no  denying  that  there  is  something 
affected  in  many  of  his  attitudes.  It  was  an 
age  of  affectation,  when  poets  delighted  in 
fanciful  conceits  and  far-fetched  images,  and 
Botticelli  was  not  strong  enough  to  escape  its 
influence.  The  most  poetical  painter  of  his 
time,  he  had  the  faults  as  well  as  the  qualities 
of  the  men  who  sang  around  him,  and  his  poses 
sometimes  overpass  the  limits  of  nature,  and 
assume  the  affected  airs  of  the  pastoral  verse 
that  charmed  his  soul. 


178  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

There  are  individuals  whom  we  love  beyond 
their  deserts,  whom  we  love  with  a  full  knowl- 
edge of  their  deficiencies,  because  of  some 
peculiar  attraction  that  emanates  from  their 
personality.  Indeed,  it  is  not  usually  the  best 
and  greatest  whom  we  love  the  most.  There 
is  in  all  of  us  something  of  the  spirit  of  the 
Athenian  who  was  tired  of  hearing  Aristides 
called  the  Just.  And  so  it  is  that  many  turn 
willingly  from  Raphael's  perfect  sanity  and 
beauty  to  the  super-refined  and  morbid  deli- 
cacy of  Botticelli.  Nor  are  they  to  be  greatly 
blamed,  for  he  can  give  them  a  peculiar  pleas- 
ure like  the  love  of  some  exquisite  creature 
upon  whose  hectic  cheek  consumption  has  set 
its  mark,  and  whose  caresses  derive  a  poignant 
sweetness  from  the  sense  of  impending  death. 

Until  our  own  day  his  influence  has  been 
slight.  But  since  Mr.  Ruskin  rediscovered 
him  he  has  been  growing  steadily  in  impor- 
tance. It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  Burne- 
Jones  could  have  existed  had  he  never  seen  the 
"Madonna  Incoronata,"  the  "Spring"  and 
the  "  Birth  of  Venus,"  or  how  Strudwick  could 
have  painted  those  wonderfully  dainty  and 


BOTTICELLI 

gracious  pictures  of  his  had  he  never  beheld 
the  "  Nativity."  As  the  progenitor  of  these 
two  masters  Botticelli  must  be  numbered  with 
the  blest ;  but  he  shines  by  no  borrowed  light, 
and  few  painters  below  the  greatest  are  pos- 
sessed of  a  charm  so  haunting  when  it  has  once 
been  felt. 


RUBENS 
(1577-1640) 

BORN  one  year  after  Titian's  death,  Rubens 
was  the  last  and  in  some  respects  the 
most  dazzling  product  of  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance. There  are  flowers  which,  when  trans- 
planted to  a  foreign  soil,  assume  strange  forms 
never  seen  before  and  take  on  a  new  and  start- 
ling brilliancy.  So  it  was  with  the  flower  of 
Renaissance  culture  when  transplanted  to  the 
Belgian  Netherlands.  It  lost  its  delicacy,  its 
grace  of  form,  its  refinement  of  color,  its  subtle 
perfume ;  but  it  bloomed  forth  into  something 
brighter,  more  gorgeous,  and  of  a  more  start- 
ling splendor.  At  first  glance  it  appears  to 
have  no  affinity  with  the  beautiful  lily  that 
grew  tall  and  stately  beside  the  Arno,  gracious 
and  lovely  among  the  Umbrian  mountains, 
luxuriant  yet  still  refined  beside  the  lagoons 
180 


RUBENS  l8l 

of  Venice;  but  on  a  careful  scrutiny  we  dis- 
cover that  it  is  still  the  same. 

If  we  imagine  a  number  of  wild  Thracians 
coming  to  Athens  to  view  the  Pan-Athenaic 
procession  and  on  their  return  attempting  to 
enact  it  at  one  of  the  orgies  of  their  bearded 
Bacchus,  we  shall  have  some  idea  of  the  trans- 
formation of  Renaissance  art  when  it  passed 
from  Raphael  and  Titian  to  its  northern  exile. 
The  grace,  the  delicacy,  the  refinement  are 
lost,  but  we  have  instead  a  wild,  lusty  strength, 
a  primitive  joy  in  animal  existence,  unprece- 
dented since  man  replaced  the  fauns  and  satyrs 
that  haunted  the  primeval  woods. 

The  perfection  of  classic  art  is  in  its  serenity 
and  self-restraint,  the  subordination  of  the 
individual  and  characteristic  to  the  ideal  and 
universal.  And  yet,  unrestrained  and  some- 
times even  grotesque  as  Rubens  is,  he  is  es- 
sentially a  classicist.  He  was  one  of  the  most 
accomplished  men  of  his  time,  speaking  all  the 
languages  of  Western  Europe,  familiar  with 
Latin  and  Greek,  and  steeped  to  the  lips  in 
ancient  literature,  art,  and  archaeology.  That 
love  for  "  the  glory  that  was  Greece  and  the 


1 82  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

grandeur  that  was  Rome,"  that  spirit  of 
humanism  which  so  permeated  the  elect  spirits 
of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  was  Rubens'  in 
fullest  measure.  At  the  banquets  of  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici,  with  Politian,  Ficino,  Filelfo,  and 
the  rest,  he  would  have  been  the  guest  of 
honor.  In  his  conversation,  so  learned,  so 
brilliant,  so  full  of  tact  and  refined  courtesy, 
they  would  have  recognized  a  kindred  soul ; 
and  would  have  hailed  him  as  one  of  the  glories 
of  the  Renaissance. 

But  art  is  nature  seen  through  a  tempera- 
ment, and  no  artist  ever  had  a  temperament 
so  overmastering  as  that  of  Rubens.  When 
he  picked  up  the  brush  and  sought  to  put 
upon  the  canvas  (or  rather  the  boards,  for 
he  usually  painted  on  wood)  those  antique 
legends  that  he  knew  so  well  and  loved  so 
much,  when  he  sought  to  translate  to  the  eye 
those  stories  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets  with 
which  he  was  so  familiar,  they  suffered  beneath 
his  magic  touch  a  wonderful  sea-change.  They 
remained  things  of  rarest  beauty,  but  instead 
of  the  chastened  and  refined  beauty  that  had 
adorned  them  in  their  southern  home,  they 


RUBENS  183 

took  on  a  florid  and  luxuriant  beauty,  a  bar- 
baric pomp  and  splendor,  a  lusty  vitality  that 
is  wholly  new. 

Usually  when  he  deals  with  classic  subjects 
it  is  in  his  own  manner.  A  great  student  of 
classic  art,  he  yet  understood  that  it  must  not 
be  imitated,  but  used  only  as  an  inspiration. 
With  his  wonderful  facility  of  execution  he 
could  no  doubt  have  reproduced  the  master- 
pieces that  he  studied  with  absolute  accuracy; 
but  when  he  copies  them  he  changes  them  to 
suit  his  own  genius.  With  him  classic  scenes 
lose  their  calm  majesty  and  are  filled  with 
tumult  and  fire.  The  tall,  straight  forms  of 
ancient  deities  become  overfull  in  their  con- 
tours and  their  curves  exaggerated.  But  that 
he  can,  if  he  sees  fit,  be  perfectly  classic  in  his 
outlines  is  attested  by  his  wonderful  "  Tiberius 
and  Agrippina  "  in  the  Liechtenstein  Gallery, 
where  a  purity  of  drawing  that  is  worthy  of 
Greece  is  combined  with  a  glory  of  color  and 
an  intense  vitality  peculiar  to  himself. 

While  so  entirely  individual  in  his  method 
of  presentation,  he  embodied,  though  with 
superhuman  power,  the  thoughts  and  ideals  of 


1 84  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

his  own  day.  No  one,  however  powerful,  can 
escape  the  spirit  of  the  times  in  which  he  lives. 
Already  art  was  invaded  by  the  affectations, 
the  baroque  style,  the  fluttering  draperies,  the 
excessive  curves,  which  a  little  later  Bernini 
was  to  carry  to  so  disastrous  an  excess. 
Rubens  was  permeated  by  all  of  these.  Every 
fault  of  his  contemporaries  is  found  in  his 
works:  their  stilted  manner,  their  tedious  alle- 
gories, their  countless  incongruities ;  but  these, 
in  passing  through  the  wonderful  alembic  of 
Rubens'  genius,  undergo  a  transformation, 
and,  ceasing  to  be  lifeless  affectations,  become 
endowed  with  an  unspeakable  vitality.  He 
utters  with  his  brush  all  the  thoughts  of  his 
own  age,  but  he  utters  them  with  the  voice  of 
a  giant,  so  that  their  petty  babblings  sound 
like  the  blast  of  a  trumpet.  The  ideals  which 
he  embodies  are  the  ideals  of  his  own  time; 
but  he  clothes  them  for  eternity. 

Even  in  his  unbridled  sensuousness  he  is  a 
man  of  his  age  and  country.  The  long,  deso- 
lating religious  wars  were  over  in  Belgium  ;  the 
stern,  unbending  Protestants  had  fled  to  Hol- 
land, Germany,  or  England,  and  the  population 


RUBENS  185 

that  remained,  weary  of  suffering,  thought 
only  of  festivals  and  enjoyment.  In  this  dis- 
position they  were  encouraged  by  their  rulers, 
who  knew  that  happy  people  are  never  dan- 
gerous, and  who  sought  by  splendid  pageants 
and  worldly  pleasures  to  divert  the  attention 
of  their  subjects  from  the  strife-breeding  ques- 
tions of  the  day. 

It  was  to  this  harmony  with  contemporary 
ideals  that  he  owed  his  wonderful  prosperity, 
a  prosperity  which  Raphael  alone  has  rivalled. 
They  both  stood  as  the  perfect  exponents  of 
their  respective  ages,  thinking  the  thoughts  of 
their  fellow-men,  but  giving  to  those  thoughts 
forms  of  imperishable  glory.  Because  they 
uttered  the  thoughts  of  their  own  time  they 
were  appreciated  in  their  own  day,  and  knew 
nothing  of  the  penury  and  neglect  that  dog 
the  footsteps  of  him  who  is  either  before  or 
behind  his  age ;  and  because  they  bodied  forth 
those  thoughts  in  everlasting  types  their  fame 
can  never  die. 

Rubens  lived  when  allegory  was  the  fashion. 
He  was  an  elder  contemporary  of  John  Bun- 
yan.  He  turns  out  one  allegory  after  another, 


1 86  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

sometimes  fairly  comprehensible,  sometimes 
demanding  a  volume  of  explanations,  and 
mingling  real  and  mythological  personages  in 
a  most  bewildering  manner.  But  while  as 
allegories  they  are  usually  obscure  enough,  save 
those  splendid  works  in  which  he  so  often  tried 
to  impress  upon  the  strife-laden  nations  the 
contrast  between  the  horrors  of  war  and  the 
blessings  of  peace,  as  pictures  they  are  im- 
mensely successful,  and  we  are  content  to  gaze 
upon  them  for  their  own  refulgent  beauty,  and 
never  trouble  ourselves  to  inquire  what  it  is  all 
about. 

The  coarseness  and  sensuality  of  the  art  of 
Rubens  offends  all  sensitive  souls;  and  yet  it 
would  be  impossible  to  make  any  list  of  the 
world's  half-dozen  supreme  masters  that  should 
not  include  his  name.  There  is  none  who  is 
absolutely  greater,  and  few  indeed  can  stand 
beside  him.  He  does  not,  like  Michelangelo, 
carry  us  to  dizzy  heights  where  the  soul  com- 
munes with  the  Deity  face  to  face;  he  does 
not,  like  Raphael,  lead  us  by  Castalian  springs 
where  the  Greek  Muses  and  the  Christian 
Graces  move  in  loving  converse ;  he  does  not, 


RUBENS  187 

like  Titian,  transport  us  to  the  Isle  of  Paphos, 
and  show  us  Venus  rising  from  the  sea  amid 
the  glories  of  a  summer  sunset;  he  does  not, 
like  Leonardo,  whisper  to  us  the  soul's  un- 
spoken secrets.  He  is  of  the  earth  earthy, 
intensely  human,  and  with  a  humanity  that 
aspires  to  no  higher  sphere. 

In  what,  then,  does  his  greatness  consist  ? 

In  the  first  place,  he  exceeds  all  artists  who  ,  /, 
have  ever  lived  in  the  power  of  life.  He  is  the 
Prometheus  of  art,  causing  the  inanimate  clay 
to  thrill  and  pulsate  with  unexampled  vitality. 
Of  all  figures  that  ever  glowed  upon  the  canvas 
or  sprang  from  the  chiselled  rock,  his  are  the 
most  alive;  so  much  alive  that  the  men  and 
women  who  pass  before  them  seem  dead  or 
sleeping  in  their  presence.  Beneath  his  brush 
the  flesh  gleams  and  quivers,  the  blood  surges 
like  liquid  fire,  or  rolls  in  turgid  rivers.  It  is 
a  purely  animal  life,  but  a  life  of  an  intensity 
unparalleled  since  Leviathan  sported  in  the 
flood  and  Behemoth  reared  his  shaggy  mane. 

From  nothing  in  art  or  literature  did  Rubens 
borrow  this  vitality.  The  wildest  orgies  de- 
picted on  Grecian  marbles,  the  scenes  por- 


1 88  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

trayed  in  the  Fourth  Book  of  Lucretius'  De 
Rerum  Natura^  are  tame  in  comparison  with 
those  "  banquets  of  the  flesh  "  of  the  marvel- 
lous Fleming.  Even  that  wonderful  Battle  of 
the  Gods  and  Giants  that  adorned  the  high 
altar  at  Pergamon  is  not  so  full  of  seething, 
passionate  life. 

This  is  Rubens'  highest  claim  to  immortal- 
ity, the  indestructible  rock  on  which  is  reared 
the  imperishable  temple  of  his  fame.  The 
power  to  infuse  life  into  inanimate  objects  is 
the  power  which  brings  man  closest  to  the 
Deity.  It  is  art's  supremest  triumph.  And 
this  Rubens  possessed  in  an  unexampled  de- 
gree. He  used  it  not  with  the  serene  wisdom 
of  the  gods,  but  abused  it  in  the  wantonness 
of  human  pride.  From  the  shadowy  void  of 
formless  things  he  brought  forth  not  shapes  of 
celestial  grace,  but  strange  beings,  half  satyr 
and  half  man,  palpitating  with  a  vehement, 
sensuous  life  at  which  Pan  himself  would  have 
gazed  in  open-mouthed  astonishment. 

Such  was  Rubens  when  himself,  Rubens 
painting  for  his  own  pleasure,  uncontrolled 
by  religious  conventions  or  the  necessities  of 


RUBENS  189 

portraiture.  But  when  the  occasion  demanded 
he  could  restrain  this  wild  pagan  spirit,  and 
be  most  nobly  human  ;  and  while  such  scenes 
have  not  the  fierce,  lusty  life  of  his  prodigious 
orgies,  they  are  immensely  vital,  more  alive 
than  when  treated  by  any  other  hand. 

In  the  second  place,  he  is  the  most  brilliant 
colorist  that  ever  lived.  He  seems  to  dip  his 
brush  in  glowing,  palpitating  light;  not  the 
luminous  gloom  that  encircles  Rembrandt's 
ugly  figures  with  an  undying  halo,  but  the 
dazzling  brightness  of  a  summer's  noon. 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that  he  is  the  greatest 
of  all  colorists.  The  Venetians  surpassed  him 
in  depth  and  harmony.  But  in  brilliancy  he 
remains  forever  unapproached.  In  every  gal- 
lery his  pictures  shine  out  like  a  lambent  flame. 
As  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  before  the  figures 
can  be  detected,  his  works  can  be  distinguished 
at  a  glance.  The  same  colors  that  others  use 
acquire  on  his  palette  a  more  penetrating 
brightness.  They  seem  lit  up  by  a  radiance 
that  somehow  fails  to  fall  upon  the  works  that 
hang  beside  them.  It  is  neither  the  pale  gray 
light  of  the  north  through  which  objects  loom 


RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

pallid  and  indistinct,  nor  the  clear  white  light 
of  southern  climes;  it  is  a  splendid  super- 
mundane effulgence  seen  only  in  the  painter's 
visions  as  he  dreamed  of  that  Italy  which  he 
loved  so  well,  basking  beneath  Apollo's  golden 

beams. 

.—«• 

It  is  this  supernatural  brilliancy  of  color  that 
makes  Rubens'  pictures  the  most  incompre- 
hensible of  all  to  him  who  has  studied  them 
only  in  photographs  and  engravings.  To 
such,  Rubens  seems  simply  coarse  and  inele- 
gant, and  the  beholder  wonders  why  this  un- 
couth Fleming  should  be  throned  beside  the 
mighty  ones  of  Italy  and  Greece.  But  no  one 
who  has  looked  upon  the  original  masterpieces 
long  enough  to  recover  from  the  first  shock  of 
their  unbridled  sensuality  can  doubt  his  right 
to  be  numbered  with  the  greatest;  and  the 
more  we  look  the  more  we  love  his  splendor, 
and  the  paler  and  darker  seem  the  works  that 
hang  beside  him.  Take,  for  example,  the 
"  Judgment  of  Paris  "  in  the  National  Gallery 
or  the  "  Perseus  and  Andromeda  "  at  Berlin. 
Anyone  studying  these  in  black  and  white, 
and  seeing  only  the  coarse  outlines  and  heavy 


RUBENS  IQI 

forms,  would  pronounce  them  ugly;  while  in 
fact  the  rich  splendor  of  their  coloring  converts 
them  into  visions  of  eternal  beauty. 

The  work  of  every  artist  is  very  apt  to  be 
affected  by  the  prevailing  atmospheric  condi- 
tions of  his  country.  Different  men  may  de- 
vote their  attention  to  differing  objects,  but 
they  all  see  them  through  the  same  all-pervad- 
ing medium.  In  a  dry  climate  like  Florence, 
where  there  is  little  atmospheric  coloring,  and 
every  outline  stands  forth  clear  and  distinct, 
the  painter  is  apt  to  be  primarily  a  draughts- 
man. In  a  moist  climate  like  Venice,  where 
in  the  shimmering  mists  outlines  are  frequently 
blurred,  and  where  the  sun  rises  and  sets  in  a 
blaze  of  glory,  the  painter  is  apt  to  sacrifice 
outline  to  color.  It  is  therefore  not  surprising 
that  in  the  far  mistier  climate  of  the  Nether- 
lands Rubens  was  essentially  a  colorist.  So 
much  environment  did  for  him ;  but  it  was  his 
own  supreme  genius  that  made  of  him  in  that 
gray,  dark  land  the  most  brilliant  colorist  that 
the  world  has  ever  seen,  dipping  his  brush  in 
tints  so  splendid  that  they  seem  to  have  been 
made  for  him  alone. 


192  RENAISSANCE   MASTERS 

In  the  third  place,  he  is  the  greatest  of  all 
painters  of  the  flesh.  Even  Titian  is  not  his 
equ&L  With  a  few  strokes  of  the  brush,  with 
an  amazing  economy  of  labor,  he  brings  before 
us  the  living,  palpitating  flesh,  with  all  its 
quivering  vitality,  its  satiny  sheen.  The 
human  flesh  is  the  most  difficult  of  all  things 
to  paint,  and  yet  the  most  important,  for 
nothing  is  more  profoundly  true  than  that 
saying  of  Pope's  that  "  the  proper  study  of 
mankind  is  man."  Hence,  he  who  can  excel 
in  that  is  entitled  to  be  called  the  most  skilful 
of  the  wielders  of  the  brush. 

Great  discrimination  is  required  in  the  study 
of  Rubens'  works.  He  was  not  merely  an 
earnest  and  laborious  painter,  but,  like  Ra- 
phael, he  was  the  presiding  genius  of  an  im- 
mense picture  manufactory,  where  all  manner 
of  decorative  commissions  were  undertaken. 
In  practically  all  of  his  works,  save  those  of  his 
early  days  and  a  few  painted  in  his  latter  years 
to  glorify  the  voluptuous  beauty  of  his  second 
wife,  the  handiwork  of  his  pupils  is  seen.  For 
many  pictures  he  furnished  only  a  sketch, 
leaving  to  the  assistants  the  entire  work  of 


RUBENS  193 

gainting.  In  some  he  only  touched  up  the 
flesh  tints ;  in  others  he  reserved  to  himself  the 
principal  figures,  leaving  the  background  and 
the  accessories  to  meaner  hands.  But  so  char- 
acteristic is  his  touch,  that  we  can  rarely  doubt 
where  his  work  ends  and  where  commences  the 
labor  even  of  the  most  skilful  of  his  pupils; 
and  he  has  fortunately  left  many  documents 
stating  accurately  the  extent  of  their  participa- 
tion, to  confirm  us  in  our  deductions. 

Nothing  is  more  difficult  to  carry  on  than  a 
picture  factory  like  this.  Artists  are  notorious 
for  their  delicately  strung  nerves,  their  sensi- 
tiveness to  criticism,  their  vanity  and  their 
irritability;  and  it  is  almost  impossible  to  in- 
duce them  to  work  together  in  harmony  and 
under  the  guidance  of  a  common  master. 
Only  two  men  have  had  the  tact  and  suavity 
to  succeed  entirely  in  such  an  enterprise,  Ra- 
phael and  Rubens,  the  two  most  charming 
personalities  in  all  the  history  of  art,  combining 
the  perfection  of  technical  skill  with  the  grace 
and  polish  of  the  most  accomplished  men  of 
the  world  and  the  native  urbanity  of  a  heart 
of  gold,  so  that  all  who  knew  them  loved  them. 


194  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

Both  have  been  severely  criticized  for  the 
employment  of  their  assistants,  and  most  un- 
justly blamed.  In  this  way  they  were  enabled 
to  multiply  their  production  many  times  while 
keeping  it  essentially  their  own ;  and  upon  the 
great  economic  principle  of  the  division  of 
labor  it  would  seem  folly  for  the  man  who 
could  paint  the  face  of  the  Virgin  or  the  flesh 
of  the  Magdalen  as  no  one  else  could  do,  to 
waste  his  precious  moments  on  draperies  and 
furniture. 

Moreover,  in  this  way  great  schemes  of 
decoration  could  be  carried  out  with  a  unity 
of  design  and  style  that  is  now  impossible. 
Look  at  any  of  our  public  buildings  that  have 
been  adorned  since  the  practice  of  collabora- 
tion has  been  abandoned.  Each  picture  is  the 
work  of  a  single  artist,  and  a  unity  in  itself; 
but  all  the  separate  unities  generally  make  a 
most  discordant  whole ;  and  it  is  only  on  those 
rare  occasions  where  an  entire  building  is 
turned  over  to  a  single  artist,  as  was  some- 
times the  case  with  Baudry  and  Puvis  de 
Chavannes,  that  a  satisfactory  result  proceeds 
from  so  much  labor. 


RUBENS  195 

Rubens'  amazing  and  unexampled  fecundity 
was  not  due  altogether  nor  chiefly  to  the  as- 
sistance of  his  pupils.  He  himself  had  an  un- 
equalled facility  of  production.  His  mastery 
of  the  brush  was  perfect ;  his  ability  to  produce 
the  desired  effect  with  the  greatest  economy  of 
labor  has  never  been  excelled.  He  had  the 
true  artist's  eye,  which  seizes  at  once  on  the 
essential  characteristics  of  things,  and  his  wide 
reading  and  continual  converse  with  learned 
men  filled  his  mind  with  unlimited  ideas  to  be 
transmuted  into  pictures.  When  you  look  at 
the  orgies  and  revels  which  he  delights  to 
paint,  you  would  expect  to  find  a  boon  com- 
panion and  a  wassailer;  but  of  all  artists  he 
was  the  most  methodical  and  industrious.  Be- 
tween the  man  and  his  art  there  was  a  mighty 
gulf.  His  works  are  the  most  unrestrained  in 
all  art's  wide  domain,  but  in  his  life  he  was 
the  model  of  manly  virtue,  living  laborious 
days  and  passing  his  nights  in  the  bosom  of 
his  family.  Even  in  the  painting  of  those 
impetuous  canvases  where  it  seems  as  if  the 
artist,  hurried  onward  by  the  fire  of  his  imagi- 
nation, had  lost  all  self-control,  he  was  never 


196  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

for  a  moment  carried  away,  but  moved  on  with 
calm  self-mastery,  advancing  the  picture  each 
day  as  much  as  time  and  circumstances  would 
permit. 

Like  most  men  destined  to  a  long  life, 
Rubens  was  slow  to  develop,  and  he  was  well 
advanced  in  manhood  before  his  style  was 
formed.  The  pictures  painted  during  his 
youth  are  numerous  and  they  are  entirely  by 
his  hand,  but  in  the  estimate  of  his  genius 
they  are  scarcely  to  be  considered  —  the  real 
Rubens  has  not  yet  been  born.  During  a 
long  sojourn  in  Italy,  on  emerging  from  his 
master's  studio  he  acquired  the  vicious  method 
of  Caravaggio,  which  was  then  the  rage,  with 
its  high  lights  and  black  shadows,  and  it  was 
many  years  before  he  shook  it  off.  His  life 
was  one  long  progress  toward  the  light.  Each 
year  the  shadows  grow  less  opaque,  each  year 
the  passage  from  light  to  shadow  is  less  abrupt, 
until  gradually  the  shadows  almost  pass  away, 
and  the  light  shines  forth  with  an  effulgence 
without  example. 

Perhaps  the  period  of  his  painting  that  ap- 
peals to  the  greater  number  is  the  middle  one, 


RUBENS  197 

when  he  produced  the  "  Descent  from  the 
Cross  "  at  Antwerp  and  so  many  other  noble 
masterpieces;  but  the  works  which  are  most 
attractive  to  the  real  lover  of  Rubens  are  those 
which  he  painted  in  his  later  years  after  his 
marriage  to  Helen  Fourment. 

At  the  age  of  fifty-three  Rubens  wedded 
this  girl  of  sixteen.  A  wonderfully  fair 
blonde,  she  was  accounted  the  most  beauti- 
ful woman  in  Flanders.  She  was  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  type  toward  which  the  art  of 
Rubens  had  been  constantly  tending.  His 
love  for  her  was  unbounded,  and  henceforth 
his  painting  is  but  a  song  in  praise  of  her 
voluptuous  charms.  Marvellous  as  had  been 
his  brush-work  before,  astonishing  his  skill  as 
a  painter  of  flesh,  henceforth  he  surpasses 
himself.  In  everything  he  produced  afterwards 
the  satiny  sheen  of  her  plump,  blond  flesh  is 
seen,  painted  with  a  caressing  touch  that  only 
love  could  dictate,  and  with  a  perfect  mastery 
that  remains  forever  unapproachable. 

And  his  indiscretions  in  the  disclosure  of  her 
beauty  are  amazing  even  among  painters.  He 
has  portrayed  her  in  every  stage  of  nudity, 


198  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

from  the  absolutely  undraped  "  Andromeda  " 
of  Berlin  and  "  Venus  of  the  Prado  "  to  the 
far  more  suggestive  half  nudity  of  the  "  Shep- 
herd and  Shepherdess"  at  Munich  and  "  La 
Pelisse"  at  Vienna.  Of  all  these  countless 
portrayals  of  her  beauty  the  last  is  probably 
the  best — probably  the  most  perfect  piece  of 
flesh  painting  in  all  the  world;  and  his  own 
appreciation  of  it  is  shown  in  his  keeping  it  by 
him  while  he  lived,  and  leaving  it  to  his  wife 
as  a  legacy  at  his  death. 

Singularly  pure  in  his  life  for  his  profession 
and  his  age,  the  imagination  of  Rubens  had 
always  been  of  a  sensuous  type ;  and  as  men 
of  that  description  advance  in  years  a  warmer 
voluptuousness  usually  displays  itself  in  their 
works;  as,  for  example,  in  those  of  Titian. 
This  was  the  case  with  Rubens,  and  after  his 
marriage  to  Helen  Fourment  his  art  became 
a  hymn  in  glorification  of  the  beauty  of  the 
flesh.  Rich  and  with  an  established  fame, 
no  longer  annoyed  with  those  embassies  and 
political  commissions  into  which  he  had  been 
drawn  because  of  his  rare  tact  in  dealing  with 
princes,  he  was  able  to  paint  more  for  his  own 


RUBENS  199 

pleasure;  and  it  was  apparently  for  the  joy  of 
the  work  itself  that  he  produced  that  wonder- 
ful series  of  pictures  of  voluptuous  beauty 
which  have  so  aptly  been  called  his  "  banquets 
of  the  flesh." 

This  had  always  been  the  most  characteristic^! 
side,pf  his  art,  the  side  on  which  he  will  remain 
forever  unapproachable;  but  his  marriage  with 
Helen  gave  him  the  model  that  seemed  per- 
fect to  his  eyes  and  one  which  he  could  never 
weary  of  depicting ;  and  so  from  that  time  this 
style  remained  uppermost.  It  was  owing  to 
his  love  for  her  that  he  brought  to  perfec- 
tion that  luminous  type  of  the  perfect  blonde 
that  has  been  the  despair  of  all  succeeding 
artists. 

The  morality  of  the  art  of  Rubens  has  been 
much  discussed.  Some  persons  are  shocked 
beyond  measure  at  the  grossness  of  his  pic- 
tures; others  equally  pure  find  in  them  no 
offense.  But  it  is  rather  a  question  of  temper- 
ament than  of  morals.  Those  of  a  cold 
temperament  find  him  shocking  in  the  ex- 
treme, while  they  see  nothing  objectionable  in 
many  works  which,  though  more  refined,  are 


r: 


2OO  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

more  immoral;  while  those  of  warmer  blood 
discover  in  Rubens  nothing  to  offend.  Some, 
like  Ruskin,  go  so  far  as  to  allow  their  preju- 
dice against  the  morality  of  his  works  to  blind 
them  to  his  greatness  as  an  artist ;  but  these 
are  few,  and  are  not  increasing. 

These  "  banquets  of  the  flesh/'  which  to 
some  are  so  objectionable,  must  remain  Ru- 
bens' greatest  masterpieces.  In  them  he  has 
the  opportunity  to  display  to  perfection  the 
three  qualities  in  which  he  stands  supreme: 

l__his  superabundant  vitality,  his  brilliant  color, 
and  his  living  flesh.  But  they  are  not  all. 

'It.  He  is  one  of  the  noblest  of  religious  painters. 
So  far  as  we  know,  he  was  sincerely  religious. 
He  began  each  day  by  hearing  mass,  and  con- 
formed to  all  the  requirements  of  the  Church. 
In  this  there  may  have  been  something  of 
worldly  policy  in  an  age  and  country  where 
safety  could  be  found  only  in  conformity  to 
ecclesiastical  demands;  but  Rubens  was  no 
hypocrite,  and  was  doubtless  a  Christian, 
though  one  of  liberal  mind.  That  spirit  of 
humanism  that  penetrated  the  Renaissance 
permitted  a  man  to  have  a  Christian  soul  and 


RUBENS  201 

a  pagan  art.  Had  he  not  been  a  Christian  he 
could  scarcely  have  brought  his  wanton  im- 
agination to  render  with  so  much  nobility  of 
feeling  the  scriptural  story.  In  the  gentler 
scenes  from  the  Gospels  the  face  of  his  Christs 
is  usually  rather  commonplace;  but  in  the 
great  tragic  moments  he  rises  to  the  level  of 
his  subject,  and  the  face,  though  wrung  with 
pain,  is  noble  and  manly  in  the  highest  degree. 
It  is  human  and  not  divine,  but  it  is  grandly 
human. 

Of  all  these  religious  pictures  the  best 
known,  and  on  the  whole  the  finest,  is  the 
"  Descent  from  the  Cross  "  at  Antwerp.  It  is 
a  work  worthy  to  stand  beside  Titian's  "  As- 
sumption." The  unity  of  the  composition  is 
perfect,  every  feeling  and  every  emotion  cen- 
tering around  the  descending  body  of  our 
Lord.  Each  movement  is  rhythmical  yet 
grand,  and  while  pity  and  sorrow  are  intense, 
they  are  not  carried  to  the  point  of  disfigura- 
tion. It  is  one  of  the  great  masterpieces  in 
grandeur  of  style.  The  color  is  not  yet  so 
rich  as  the  master  afterwards  attained  nor  the 
lights  so  skilfully  handled ;  but  as  a  noble, 


2O2  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

dignified  work  of  religious  painting  it  has  few 
rivals,  and  perhaps  no  superior. 

There  are  many  others  by  Rubens'  brush 
that  are  fit  for  its  illustrious  companionship; 
such,  for  example,  as  the  noble  "  Theodosius 
Refused  Admittance  to  the  Church,"  that 
adorns  the  gallery  at  Vienna;  but  there  are 
also  many  others  which  he  painted  for  relig- 
ious pictures  and  which  were  gravely  hung  in 
sacred  places  that  are  really  as  much  "  ban- 
quets of  the  flesh  "  as  those  which  he  painted 
in  praise  of  Helen  Fourment's  beauty.  Yet 
who  would  wish  them  otherwise  ?  Who 
would  blot  out  those  numerous  Saint  Sebas- 
tians, Magdalens,  and  Susannahs  that  are 
among  art's  greatest  triumphs  ?  The  Mag- 
dalen in  the  picture  of  "  Christ  and  the  Four 
Penitents"  at  Munich,  with  her  perfect  blond 
beauty  and  her  shoulders  so  white  and  smooth 
that  beside  them  the  richest  satin  would  seem 
coarse,  is  alone  worth  a  king's  ransom. 

Rubens  was  himself  most  abstemious  for  his 
time,  but  he  took  a  strange  delight  in  the 
representation  of  drunkenness.  Silenus  and 
his  drunken  rout  repeatedly  pass  before  us, 


RUBENS  2O3 

and  even  Hercules  reels  by,  supported  by 
fauns  and  satyrs  whose  intoxication  is  scarcely 
less  complete.  And  it  is  with  evident  love 
that  he  paints  all  this.  Sober  himself,  he  de- 
lights to  note  in  those  around  him  the  exhilara- 
tion and  the  imbecility  of  the  winecup.  And 
this  was  not  so  unreasonable  in  his  day  as  it 
now  appears.  Drunkenness  then  brought  no 
dishonor.  It  was  the  accompaniment  and  the 
crown  of  every  banquet.  The  ancestors  of  his 
fellow-citizens  had  been  the  worshippers  of  the 
god  Thor,  whose  proudest  exploit  had  been 
that  he  had  threatened  to  drink  the  ocean  dry. 
Rubens  in  this,  as  in  other  things,  accepted  the 
ideas  of  his  time,  but  clothed  them  in  forms 
that  have  made  them  colossal  and  eternal. 

Rubens  was  principally  a  painter  of  the 
human  figure,  but  he  excelled  all  contempo- 
raries in  every  other  branch.  Usually  the 
animals  in  his  pictures  were  painted  by  Sny- 
ders  or  some  other  assistant;  but  when  he 
turned  his  hand  to  them,  even  Snyders  had  to 
own  himself  surpassed.  In  his  early  days  he 
paid  little  regard  to  landscape,  usually  having 
his  backgrounds  painted  in  by  others;  but  in 


204  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

his  declining  years,  when  he  had  retired  to  the 
country,  he  devoted  some  attention  to  the 
study  of  nature,  and  the  landscapes  that  he 
painted  go  far  beyond  anything  that  had 
hitherto  been  produced  in  penetrating  obser- 
vation of  natural  phenomena,  particularly  of 
clouds,  light,  and  atmosphere ;  while  his  vege- 
tation has  the  same  superabundant  life  and  sap 
that  characterize  his  men  and  animals. 

He  was  too  intensely  original  to  devote 
himself  greatly  to  portraiture.  He  abhorred 
the  literal  fact.  Even  when  he  set  himself  to 
copy  a  picture  by  a  master  whom  he  loved,  as, 
for  example,  Mantegna's  "  Triumph  of  Julius 
Caesar,"  it  was  never  an  accurate  transcription, 
but  a  free  version  in  his  own  exuberant  lan- 
guage. Therefore  his  portraits  are  not  numer- 
ous, and  perhaps  they  are  not  absolutely  true 
to  fact;  but  they  are  full  of  palpitating  life, 
and  sometimes  they  are  perfect  in  their  style. 
What  could  be  lovelier  or  more  living  than  the 
charming  portrait  of  the  elder  sister  of  Helen 
Fourment  that  hangs  in  the  National  Gallery, 
and  is  called  "  Le  Chapeau  de  Foil,"  or  that 
Jacqueline  de  Cordes  that  is  one  of  the  brightest 


RUBENS  205 

jewels  in  the  gallery  at  Brussels  ?  His  por- 
traits have  not  the  aristocratic  bearing  that 
Van  Dyck  gave  to  all  his  sitters  nor  the  in- 
tense realism  of  Velasquez ;  but  they  are  won- 
derfully alive. 

Yet  it  is  easy  to  see  that  in  painting  them 
Rubens  felt  himself  hampered,  and  that  he 
worked  unwillingly  save  when  love  guided  the 
brush.  He  turns  with  evident  delight  to 
themes  that  leave  to  his  imagination  unfettered 
scope,  and  particularly  to  vast  canvases  which 
he  could  fill  with  exuberant  forms  of  super- 
human power. 

He  was  not  a  painter  of  miniatures.  He 
loved  broad  surfaces  over  which  his  brush 
could  sweep  in  unfettered  boldness  of  design 
and  execution.  He  preferred  figures  of  natural 
size;  and  in  the  handling  of  large  groups  in 
strenuous  action  he  has  had  few  compeers. 
Sometimes,  like  Michelangelo  in  his  "  Last 
Judgment,"  he  overreached  himself,  as  in  his 
"  Fall  of  the  Damned"  and  "  Fall  of  the 
Rebel  Angels,"  and  in  his  two  versions  of  the 
"  Last  Judgment  "  at  Munich,  crowding 
the  scene  to  such  an  extent  that  pictorial 


2O6  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

effect  is  lost ;  but  usually  he  succeeds  wonder- 
fully, as  in  the  marvellous  "  Boar  Hunt  "  at 
Dresden  and  "  Lion  Hunt  "  at  Munich; 
which,  in  the  intensity  of  the  passions,  the 
vehemence  of  the  action,  and  the  impression 
of  strenuous  vitality,  are  worthy  a  place  beside 
Leonardo's  "  Battle  of  the  Standard,"  a  part 
of  which  Rubens  had  copied,  and  which  no 
doubt  he  had  in  mind  when  these  masterpieces 
were  produced. 

Yet  the  man  who  painted  these  wonderful 
displays  of  rage  and  power  has  had  no  rival  save 
Correggio  in  depicting  the  sweet  innocence  of 
babyhood.  He  loved  children  with  all  his 
soul,  and  delighted  in  their  dimpled  charms, 
their  guileless  mirth,  and  their  bird-like  prat- 
tle. His  children  are  not  superhumanly  bright 
and  soulful,  youthful  seraphs,  like  those  of 
Correggio.  But  they  are  so  plump,  so  healthy, 
so  full  of  bubbling  life,  so  thoroughly  childlike 
that  they  are  irresistible.  Where  will  you  find 
such  a  picture  of  babyhood  as  the  "  Christ  and 
St.  John  with  Two  Infant  Angels  "  in  the  gal- 
lery at  Berlin  ?  And  he  painted  many  others 
that  are  little,  if  at  all,  inferior. 


RUBENS  207 

As  we  have  said,  in  the  handling  of  large 
masses  in  movement  or  at  rest,  he  has  had 
few,  if  any,  equals.  However  great  the  crowd, 
he  possesses  a  wonderful  faculty  of  binding  it 
together  so  as  to  produce  an  effect  of  unity. 
The  wealth  of  details  rarely  detracts  from  the 
unity  of  the  effect.  To  crowd  a  picture  with 
figures  is  nearly  always  a  mistake.  The  asser- 
tion made  by  a  distinguished  artist  that  there 
was  never  a  great  picture  with  more  than  one 
figure  is  of  course  an  exaggeration ;  but  when 
they  surpass  a  certain  number  they  are  rarely 
handled  with  success.  As  some  generals  can 
marshal  a  larger  army  than  others,  so  Rubens 
could  marshal  a  greater  array  of  figures  in  more 
varied  action  than  is  usually  possible.  Again 
and  again  he  presents  us  vast  compositions, 
such  as  the  "  Rape  of  the  Sabines,"  the 
"  Massacre  of  the  Innocents,"  the  "  Garden 
of  Love,"  the  "  Kermesse,"  and  the  like, 
filled  with  many  figures,  each  entirely  indi- 
vidual and  deserving  of  special  study,  yet  all 
contributing  to  produce  a  single  impression. 

Though  so  different,  Rubens  reminds  one  of 
Michelangelo.  In  the  mighty  Florentine  he 


208  RENAISSANCE   MASTERS 

finds  his  only  rival  in  vital  force.  In  that  re- 
spect those  two  giants  stand  upon  an  eminence 
which  none  other  dares  approach.  The  life 
that  quivers  in  every  muscle  of  Michelangelo's 
titans  is  gloomy  and  stern,  full  of  inward  striv- 
ings and  of  aspirations  too  lofty  for  this  world. 
The  life  that  surges  in  reddest  blood  through 
the  overfed  bodies  of  Rubens  and  glistens  in 
their  shining  flesh  is  joyous,  earthly,  and 
sensual,  and  thrills  with  no  supermundane  de- 
sires; but  it  is  equally  intense.  The  one  is  the 
life  of  titans  that  would  pile  Pelion  on  Ossa  to 
reach  the  heaven  from  which  they  are  ex- 
cluded ;  the  other  is  what  the  life  of  the  fauns, 
satyrs,  and  wood  nymphs  would  have  been  had 
they  grown  up  in  a  richer,  fatter  land,  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey,  and  where  the  gift  of 
Bacchus  hung  from  every  bough. 

He  also  resembles  Michelangelo  in  his  im- 
mense originality.  No  other  artists  are  so 
original,  none  others  owe  so  little  to  external 
suggestion.  Michelangelo  deals  with  strenu- 
ous muscles,  Rubens  with  palpitating  flesh. 
Michelangelo  is  above  the  weaknesses  of 
earth ;  the  art  of  Rubens  is  the  apotheosis 


RUBENS  2O9 

of  carnal  appetites.  Both  are  equally  re- 
moved from  the  serene  perfection  of  Raphael, 
both  are  abnormal,  pressing  their  characteristic 
qualities  far  beyond  the  narrow  bounds  of  na- 
ture. Their  men  and  women  are  not  human- 
ity perfected ;  but  humanity  with  special  quali- 
ties developed  to  a  superhuman  degree.  But 
in  their  way  of  looking  at  the  world,  in  the 
character  of  the  types  which  they  evoke  and 
the  method  of  their  presentation,  Michelangelo 
and  Rubens  are  both  removed  to  an  immeasur- 
able distance  from  those  who  approach  them 
closest. 

They  are  alike  also  in  that  neither  founded 
a  school,  and  both  were  stumbling  blocks  in 
the  way  of  those  who  followed.  This  is  the 
inevitable  consequence  of  supreme  strength. 
Skill  may  be  imitated,  but  strength  is  Nature's 
gift.  And  the  sight  of  strength  is  demoraliz- 
ing to  the  weak.  They  strive  to  imitate  its 
play,  but  theatrical  straining  after  effect  is  the 
only  result.  Both  had  many  admirers,  and 
Rubens  had  many  pupils ;  but  the  true  art  of 
both  was  so  intensely  personal  that  it  perished 
when  they  died. 


210  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

Rubens  is  one  of  the  broadest  of  all  painters. 
In  landscape,  in  the  painting  of  animals,  in 
humanity's  boundless  realm  he  was  almost  in- 
exhaustible. There  was  only  one  limitation 
to  his  talent  —  he  could  not  scale  the  loftiest 
heights.  Man's  highest  spiritual  nature  was 
to  him  a  sealed  book.  Ordinary  emotions  he 
could  feel  intensely;  but  he  could  not  climb 
Sinai's  riven  summit  with  Michelangelo  nor 
stand  with  Phidias  in  serene  majesty  upon 
Parnassus'  brow.  His  place  was  in  the  valley 
where  dwell  the  men  of  earth,  or  in  the  forest 
glades  where  Bacchus  and  his  rout  held  their 
prodigious  revels. 

The  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  will  never  die, 
but  Rubens  was  its  last  great  exemplar.  Al- 
ready the  two  great  painters  who  were  his 
younger  contemporaries,  Rembrandt  and  Vel- 
asquez, have  wholly  escaped  its  influence, 
looking  upon  the  world  with  different  eyes  and 
from  a  different  point  of  view.  But  as  the 
dying  day  often  flares  up  in  a  sunset  glory 
that  makes  us  almost  forget  its  noontide  splen- 
dor, so  Rubens  came  to  give  to  the  dying 
Renaissance  the  one  triumph  that  it  lacked. 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE 
(1600-1682) 

LANDSCAPE  artists,  like  all  others,  are 
divided  into  two  great  schools,  the  real- 
ists, who  are  content  to  reproduce  with  photo- 
graphic accuracy  the  things  they  see,  and  the 
idealists,  who  strive  to  body  forth  their  own 
conceptions.  Of  these,  the  latter  are  the 
higher  type.  For  the  realist  only  a  clear  eye,  a 
cunning  hand,  and  technical  training  are  essen- 
tial. The  idealist  worthy  of  the  name  must 
possess  all  these,  and  must  have  in  addition 
that  capacity  to  evoke  forms  of  power  and 
beauty  from  the  shadowy  void,  that  creative 
faculty,  which  brings  man  closest  to  the  Deity. 
The  idealistic  school  has  been  discredited  in 
the  opinion  of  many  by  the  incompetency  so 
often  manifested  by  its  practitioners.  Their 
minds  teeming  with  images,  they  have  sought 

211 


212  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

to  give  to  their  visions  a  local  habitation  and  a 
name  without  first  attaining  the  technical  mas- 
tery essential  for  self-expression.  They  have 
sought  to  dance  before  they  have  learned  to 
walk  ;  and  the  result  has  been  feeble,  sometimes 
even  grotesque.  If  we  attempt  to  produce  the 
ideal  without  an  effectual  hold  of  the  real,  we 
have  vague,  lifeless  abstractions  that  may  excite 
the  wonder  of  the  ignorant,  but  which  cannot 
long  command  attention.  But  when  both  are 
combined,  when  a  dream  is  clothed  with  a  real- 
ism so  intense  that  it  seems  as  true  as  fact,  as  in 
the  case  of  Dante's  vision  of  Heaven  and  Hell, 
or  when  the  hard  actualities  of  life  are  bathed  in 
an  ideal  atmosphere,  as  in  Hawthorne's  Scarlet 
Letter,  we  have  a  work  that  will  survive  the 
wearing  of  the  ages. 

The  real  is  the  first  thing  to  be  aimed  at. 
We  cannot  write  a  poem  until  we  have  mastered 
the  grammar;  we  cannot  dance  until  we  have 
learned  to  walk.  But  if  we  are  content  with 
grammatical  exercises,  we  shall  never  produce 
literature ;  if  we  are  content  to  walk,  we  shall 
know  nothing  of  the  poetry  of  motion.  As  the 
scholar  learns  a  language  not  for  the  sake  of 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE  213 

knowing  it,  but  as  a  key  to  the  treasures  which 
it  unlocks,  so  the  idealist  learns  to  reproduce 
the  real  by  brush  or  chisel  only  as  a  means  of 
giving  tangible  forms  to  the  visions  of  beauty 
that  float  before  his  mind's  eye. 

It  is  the  function  of  art  to  perfect  nature. 
She  is  a  wonderful  enchantress,  infinite  in  her 
variety,  but  never  perfect  in  her  workmanship. 
Of  the  thousands  of  leaves  upon  a  tree,  no  two 
are  alike,  yet  no  one  of  them  is  the  perfect  type 
to  which  the  others  should  conform.  Of  the 
millions  of  beautiful  women  that  have  adorned 
the  earth,  no  two  could  be  mistaken  for  one  an- 
other on  a  careful  comparison,  yet  not  one  is 
faultless.  And  so  it  is  in  landscape.  There 
was  never  a  scene  so  lovely  that  it  could  not  be 
improved  by  the  removal  of  some  unsightly  or 
discordant  object,  or  the  addition  of  something 
to  enhance  its  beauty  or  sublimity.  The  painter 
who  reproduces  any  view,  however  enchanting, 
with  literal  accuracy,  has  merely  learned  the 
technic  of  his  craft.  He  is  not  a  creative  genius. 
To  be  such  he  must  not  only  know  the  secrets 
of  mixing  and  applying  paint  to  board  and  can- 
vas ;  he  must  have  studied  Nature  with  such 


214  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

loving  insight  that  he  can  enter  into  her  work- 
shop and  comprehend  her  processes.  He  must 
not  only  be  able  to  copy  what  she  has  done, 
but  to  create  scenes  that  she  might  have  created 
and  as  she  would  have  made  them.  He  should 
be  able  to  use  the  prospect  before  him  as  the 
inspired  sculptor  uses  the  living  model — merely 
as  a  source  of  suggestions  and  as  a  guide  to 
truth.  He  should  be  able  to  look  beyond 
the  actual  to  the  ideal,  taking  the  real  only 
as  a  firm  foundation  on  which  to  plant  the 
ladder  of  his  dreams. 

Thus  it  was  with  Claude  Lorraine,  who,  in 
spite  of  all  the  attacks  made  upon  him  by  smart 
critics,  still  remains  the  prince  of  landscape 
painters.  Never  did  artist  study  nature  with 
more  loving  care.  His  two  biographers,  Sand- 
rart  and  Baldinucci,  tell  us  how  he  would 
wander  forth  into  the  Campagna  before  the 
dawn  and  remain  until  after  nightfall,  striving 
to  fix  upon  his  palette  every  gradation  of  light, 
every  tint  of  the  earth  and  sky,  every  atmos- 
pheric effect ;  how  laboriously  he  would  copy 
every  tree  and  leaf  and  flower,  every  rock  and 
mountain,  the  flowing  brook  and  the  rippling, 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE  21$ 

sun-kissed  sea.  Innumerable  sketches  remain 
to  attest  his  industry  and  the  keenness  of  his 
observation.  These  are  no  doubt  but  a  small 
fragment  of  the  whole ;  yet  they  demonstrate 
that  he  was  no  idle  dreamer,  but  one  of  the 
most  conscientious  seekers  after  truth  in  all  the 
range  of  art.  They  show,  too,  that  he  perceived 
many  things  that  he  did  not  put  upon  his  canvas 
because  they  did  not  suit  his  purpose ;  things 
which  critics  have  accused  him  of  being  too 
artificial  to  appreciate.  They  prove  that  had 
he  desired  it  he  could  have  been  one  of  the  most 
effective  realists  that  ever  lived.  His  Liber 
Veritatis,  with  its  two  hundred  drawings  of  his 
finished  pictures,  is  unhappily  locked  up  at 
Chatsworth,  the  home  of  the  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire; but  every  important  gallery  in  Europe 
possesses  some  of  his  sketches  and  drawings, 
the  National  Gallery  an  immense  number ;  and 
these  show  a  delicacy  and  precision  that  rank 
Claude  among  the  great  draughtsmen ;  nor  is 
their  beauty  more  remarkable  than  the  variety 
of  the  observations  that  they  record.  But  all 
this  enormous  mastery  of  detail  he  used  only 
as  steps  to  the  ideal.  He  did  not  sit  down  be- 


2l6  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

fore  a  landscape  and  copy  it  with  literal  fidelity. 
From  the  view  before  him  he  eliminated  every 
discordant  element  and  added  what  was  needed 
to  make  it  perfect ;  and  he  bathed  it  all  in  an 
atmosphere  of  celestial  peace  that  Nature  has 
never  known  and  man  has  found  only  in  his 
dreams  of  heaven.  There  results  a  scene  like  the 
"  Marriage  of  Isaac  and  Rebecca  "  in  the  Doria 
Gallery,  such  as  Nature  has  never  made,  but 
which  is  true  in  every  detail,  and  which  she 
would  have  rejoiced  to  make  had  her  mood 
been  happier.  To  a  dweller  in  a  northern  clime 
these  pictures  may  seem  unreal  in  the  ideality 
of  their  beauty;  but  he  who  has  wandered 
through  the  hills  and  valleys  of  Umbria  with 
their  sense  of  limitless  space  and  their  mountains 
blue  in  the  distance,  who  has  gazed  from  the 
battlements  of  her  high-perched  cities  over  the 
broad  vales  where  all  lies  in  unbroken  repose 
touched  with  sweetest  melancholy,  to  the  far- 
off  summits  whose  sun-kissed  clouds  seem 
heaven's  own  outworks,  who  has  stood  at  a 
Mediterranean  seaport  and  watched  the  setting 
sun  fill  the  air  with  gold-dust  and  suffuse  the 
sapphire  sea  with  amethystine  tints, — he  can 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE  21? 

understand  that  while  the  scene  which  Claude 
spreads  out  before  us  is  nature  perfected,  it  is 
still  as  true  as  it  is  enchanting. 

In  four  aspects  of  landscape  art  Claude  has 
never  been  surpassed,  and  rarely  equalled :  in 
beauty,  in  serene  peacefulness,  in  the  sense  of 
space,  in  atmosphere  and  light. 

The  beauty  of  his  landscapes  none  can  deny. 
Everything  that  nature  offers  most  alluring  to 
the  eye  is  to  be  found  there  ;  trees  that  are  the 
perfection  of  symmetry  and  grace ;  crystalline 
brooks  that  murmur  between  their  verdurous 
banks,  now  breaking  into  miniature  waterfalls, 
now  spreading  out  into  lovely  pools  that  reflect 
the  glories  of  the  earth  and  sky  ;  distant  moun- 
tains whose  curves  possess  a  truly  feminine  grace 
which  yet  detracts  not  from  their  sublimity ; 
ancient  ruins  and  classic  buildings  of  pleasing 
architecture ;  the  sunlit  sea  in  all  the  charm  of 
its  hours  of  peace.  And  while  he  gives  us  all 
these  in  their  most  exquisite  forms,  he  excludes 
all  that  is  ugly,  all  that  is  out  of  keeping  with 
the  spirit  of  the  scene.  His  pictures  are  true 
harmonies,  such  harmonies  as  have  rarely  been 
produced. 


2l8  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

The  realist  says :  "  This  is  all  very  beautiful, 
but  it  is  artificial.  Nature  makes  nothing  so 
perfect."  To  which  Claude  might  reply  :  "Every 
tree,  every  mountain,  every  aspect  of  earth  and 
sky,  has  been  studied  from  Nature.  Every  part 
is  true,  and  if  I  have  brought  together  forms 
of  grace  and  beauty  that  Nature  scattered  far 
apart,  I  have  but  discharged  the  function  of 
the  artist."  And  the  traveller  who  will  follow 
Claude  over  the  rolling  Campagna  and  the 
Alban  and  Sabine  hills  into  Umbria's  land  of 
enchantment  will  see  that  Nature  in  her  happiest 
moments  can  give  us  effects  almost  as  sym- 
metrical, almost  as  serenely  beautiful,  as  any 
offered  by  Claude's  magic  brush.  Pictures  which 
to  the  dwellers  in  less  favored  countries  seem 
too  exquisite  for  reality  are  little  more  than  the 
bare  truth  in  that  region  of  delight. 

Besides,  no  one  reproaches  Phidias  or  the 
unknown  sculptor  of  the  Venus  of  Melos  with 
having  surpassed  Nature  in  dealing  with  the 
human  form.  Their  figures,  though  super- 
human, are  true  to  life.  And  so  it  is  with 
Claude's  landscapes.  They  are  perfectly  true 
to  Nature,  such  scenes  as  she  has  made  in 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE  219 

Italy,  such  as  she  might  have  made  in  other 
lands  had  her  mood  been  happier.  The  fact 
that  they  are  not  transcripts  of  any  particular 
view  does  not  impair  their  truth,  any  more 
than  the  Venus  of  Melos  suffers  because  she  is 
not  a  literal  reproduction  of  any  model. 

I  have  never  understood  the  reproach  so 
often  directed  against  Claude  of  introducing 
into  his  pictures  Roman  ruins  and  classic  archi- 
tecture. Such  things  exist,  and  they  are  beau- 
tiful. They  were  constantly  under  his  eye. 
Men  travel  thousands  of  miles  to  see  them. 
Why,  then,  should  not  Claude  use  them  to 
embellish  his  landscapes  ?  They  are  as  real  as 
a  peasant's  hut.  But  somehow  in  these  later 
days  the  idea  has  gotten  abroad  that  only  the 
ugly  and  the  commonplace  are  real ;  that  things 
of  elegance  and  beauty  lend  an  aspect  of  arti- 
ficiality to  a  scene.  Yet  in  fact  the  togaed 
Romans,  the  mailed  knights  of  chivalry,  and 
the  silken  courtiers  of  Watteau  were  just  as 
real  as  the  drunken  boors  of  Teniers  or  the 
peasants  of  Millet,  and  the  artist  who  repre- 
sented them  as  they  were  was  as  true  a  realist. 
Nor  was  Claude's  introduction  of  these  ruins 


22O  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

and  this  beautiful  architecture  the  result  of 
pedantry.  He  was  an  unlearned,  almost  an  il- 
literate man,  who  painted  as  a  bird  sings,  from 
the  fulness  of  an  overflowing  heart.  He  painted 
the  things  that  were  lovely  in  his  eyes,  and 
happily  there  are  few  to  whom  they  are  not  a 
source  of  perennial  delight.  If  Claude  had  had 
no  successors,  the  charge  of  artificiality  would 
probably  never  have  been  advanced ;  but  un- 
happily he  was  followed  by  a  horde  of  imita- 
tors, who,  with  no  study  of  Nature,  sought  to 
paint  scenes  like  his;  and  their  lifeless  pro- 
ductions have  brought  the  whole  school  into 
disrepute. 

In  conveying  a  sense  of  peace  Claude  has 
never  been  equalled,  and  this  makes  him  one 
of  the  greatest  ethical  forces  in  the  domain  of 
art.  The  old  Greek  virtue  of  serenity — one  of 
the  greatest  of  all  virtues — has  been  sadly  lack- 
ing in  modern  days.  Instead,  we  have  con- 
tinual unrest,  strivings  for  the  unattainable, 
dissatisfaction  with  ourselves  and  with  all  about 
us.  Claude  takes  us  out  of  this  nervous,  irri- 
table, work-a-day  world,  and  transports  us  into 
a  land  of  enchantment,  where  all  is  peace  and 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE  221 

rest  and  serenest  joy ;  where  strife  and  sin 
have  been  forgotten ;  where  the  gladness  of 
the  morning,  the  delicious  languor  of  a  day  in 
June,  or  the  exquisite  reveries  of  the  sunset 
hour  abide  forever.  When  we  are  oppressed 
with  toil  and  care ;  when  love  and  hope  seem 
mockeries  and  hate  and  pain  and  weariness  the 
only  realities,  then  let  the  troubled  spirit  turn 
to  Claude  and  bathe  in  his  immortal  sunshine. 
There  are  few  pictures  that  we  so  love  to  live 
with,  that  have  so  healing  an  effect  upon  the 
soul.  The  calm  beauty  of  his  landscapes  de- 
scends upon  us  like  a  benediction.  They  take 
us  out  of  ourselves,  out  of  our  sordid  surround- 
ings, away  from  the  trivialities  of  our  petty 
existence,  and  bear  us  off  into  a  world  of  serene 
beauty,  where  struggle  and  sorrow  are  unknown 
or  but  a  fading  memory  that  enhances  our 
sense  of  tranquil  happiness.  Of  all  man's 
dreams  of  heaven  on  earth,  Claude's  come 
nearest  to  perfection. 

Nature  is  infinite  in  her  manifestations,  and 
some  of  her  aspects  appeal  to  one,  some  to 
another ;  but  there  are  many  of  us  for  whom 
the  finest  quality  in  a  landscape  is  the  sense  of 


222  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

space,  the  uplifting  of  the  soul  into  the  infinite 
that  it  gives.  In  this  respect  Claude  has  never 
been  equalled  save  by  Turner  in  a  few  in- 
stances ;  and  he  produces  his  effects  with  the 
sureness  of  a  consummate  master,  whose  hand 
rarely  fails. 

If  any  man  of  clear  vision  will  ask  himself 
what  was  the  supreme  moment  of  his  soul's 
expansion,  what  was  the  moment  when  he  felt 
most  like  a  god,  when  the  trammels  of  the  flesh 
seemed  to  fall  away  and  the  disembodied  spirit 
to  soar  highest  in  the  heavens,  he  will  recall 
the  instant  when  some  far-reaching  prospect 
was  first  opened  to  his  gaze.  He  will  think  of 
the  time  when  he  first  stood  on  Mount  Royal 
above  Montreal,  upon  Richmond  Hill,  on  Peru- 
gia's battlements,  or  on  some  other  eminence 
overlooking  a  limitless  expanse.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  such  a  view  we  forget  that  we  are 
poor  creatures  crawling  upon  the  earth.  The 
soul  takes  unto  itself  the  wings  of  the  morning, 
and  flies  away  over  sea  and  land  into  the  realm 
of  the  infinite. 

The  weakness  of  man's  mind  and  of  his 
vision  is  such  that  for  him  to  feel  the  sense  of 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE 

space  the  scene  must  have  a  distant  boundary 
and  there  must  be  objects  between  on  which 
the  eye  can  rest.  The  most  limitless  of  all 
views  is  up  into  the  cloudless  heavens,  where 
the  closest  star  is  millions  of  miles  away ;  but 
we  wholly  fail  to  grasp  its  import.  So  it  is 
beside  the  sea.  Its  vastness  so  far  exceeds  our 
comprehension,  the  eye  is  so  completely  lost 
over  the  boundless  expanse,  that  we  have  no 
realization  of  distance.  But  in  the  region 
around  Rome,  where  Claude  spent  nearly  the 
whole  of  his  long  life,  everything  combines  to 
fill  us  with  a  sense  of  space.  The  gently  roll- 
ing Campagna,  dotted  with  ruins  and  studded 
with  an  occasional  tree  or  dwelling,  lures  the 
eye  on  and  on  from  point  to  point  till  at  last  it 
rests  upon  the  far-off  mountains.  There  are 
countless  objects  to  arrest  the  gaze,  and  as  our 
glance  ranges  from  one  to  another  ever  farther 
away,  the  vista  seems  to  stretch  into  infinity. 

Claude  had  this  view  ever  before  his  eyes, 
and  its  lesson  sank  into  his  soul  as  it  has  never 
sunk  into  the  soul  of  any  other  artist.  Nearly 
all  of  his  pictures  give  us  an  unparalleled  sense 
of  space.  The  eye  is  led  on  from  tree  to  river, 


224  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

from  river  to  hill,  and  from  hill  to  distant 
mountain  that  suggests  yet  something  beyond. 
The  vanishing  point  seems  removed  to  an  un- 
limited distance ;  and  in  their  presence  we  feel 
the  same  thrill,  the  same  sense  of  the  immedi- 
ate presence  of  the  infinite  as  when  we  have 
climbed  some  eminence  that  gives  us  a  far- 
reaching  view. 

There  are  few  artists  who  are  so  sure  of  their 
effects  as  Claude.  Of  course,  being  human,  he 
failed  at  times  ;  but  the  failures  are  so  few  that 
they  can  be  ignored  in  the  estimate  of  his 
achievement.  He  was  not  a  rapid  worker.  He 
painted  with  so  much  care,  he  was  so  deter- 
mined that  every  detail  should  be  accurate, 
that  with  all  his  unflagging  industry  he  turned 
out  only  from  three  to  five  pictures  a  year ;  but 
he  was  fortunately  spared  for  so  great  a  length 
of  days  that  his  total  production  amounted  to 
some  four  hundred  finished  paintings,  so  that 
every  considerable  gallery  in  Europe  can  boast 
of  something  from  his  brush,  while  the  homes 
of  the  English  nobility  and  gentry  are  teeming 
with  his  works.  And  in  all  this  vast  output 
how  few  are  the  unworthy  canvases !  Nearly 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE  22$ 

every  one  of  them  gives  us  a  glorious  vision  of 
peace  and  beauty,  and  arouses  in  us  a  percep- 
tion of  the  infinity  of  space. 

Landscape  art  has  explored  so  many  fields 
since  Claude's  day  that  it  is  hard  now  to  realize 
that  in  his  own  time  he  was  something  of  a 
revolutionist,  making  many  advances  upon  the 
work  of  his  predecessors.  The  chief  of  these 
was  that  he  was  the  first  to  place  the  sun 
in  the  sky.  In  the  predella  of  his  "Adora- 
tion of  the  Kings,"  in  the  Florentine  Academy, 
Gentile  da  Fabrino  paints  the  sun ;  but  he 
gives  it  the  face  of  a  man,  and  makes  no  effort 
to  depict  its  real  aspect.  The  same  is  true  of 
all  Claude's  predecessors.  Claude  not  only 
painted  the  rising  and  the  setting  sun,  but  he 
painted  it  so  well  that  no  one  has  since  sur- 
passed or  even  equalled  him.  Some  of  Turner's 
sunsets  are  said  to  have  been  originally  more 
brilliant ;  but  the  pigments  used  were  so  defec- 
tive that  they  have  long  since  faded;  and 
for  the  present  generation  Claude  is  still  the 
painter  who  gives  us  the  most  perfect  presenta- 
tion of  the  sun's  glory. 

In  light  and  atmosphere  and  the  rendering  of 


226  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

the  sky  he  also  made  an  immense  advance  on 
anything  that  had  been  done  before.  Many 
atmospheric  phenomena,  many  effects  of  light 
have  been  since  presented  by  the  brush  that 
Claude  either  failed  to  observe  or  eliminated  as 
unsuited  to  his  purpose.  But  in  the  rendition 
of  those  effects  which  he  chose  to  portray  he  is 
still  the  master.  His  landscapes  are  bathed  in 
atmosphere ;  not  the  heavy  moist  atmosphere 
of  the  north  of  Europe,  which  envelops  every- 
thing in  mist  and  blurs  all  outlines,  but  the 
clear,  luminous  atmosphere  of  sunlit  Italy, 
which  leaves  all  clear  and  distinct  and  only 
serves  to  accentuate  the  distance. 

And  there  are  no  pictures  more  thoroughly 
suffused  with  light.  It  permeates  everywhere. 
It  shimmers  through  the  foliage,  it  laughs  upon 
the  surface  of  the  rippling  brook,  it  caresses 
the  ruin  in  the  foreground,  it  bathes  the  dis- 
tant hill  in  splendor.  But  it  is  never  obtrusive. 
As  in  nature,  it  is  the  all-pervading  revealer  of 
opaque  objects,  not  a  thing  existing  for  itself. 
And  Claude  comprehended  what  so  many  real- 
ists have  forgotten,  that  the  light  can  fall  as  well 
upon  the  beautiful  as  upon  the  ugly,  that  it  can 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE  22^ 

light  up  a  temple  or  a  palace  as  delightfully  as  a 
cottage.  Claude  realized,  too,  the  limitations 
of  pigment  in  dealing  with  light — a  thing  which 
the  impressionists  have  yet  to  learn.  Knowing 
that  no  paint  could  reproduce  the  clear  bril- 
liancy of  sunlight,  he  did  as  a  composer  who 
transposes  a  harmony  to  a  lower  key — he  did 
the  best  he  could  to  represent  the  sun's  bright- 
ness, and  then  brought  down  all  the  other 
lights  in  proportion,  so  as  to  preserve  the  har- 
mony of  effect.  The  impressionist,  on  the  other 
hand,  tries  to  paint  the  light  precisely  as  it  is. 
He  can  give  us  the  exact  tone  of  light  in  the 
shadows ;  but  he  cannot  produce  the  brilliance 
of  the  sunlight,  and  so  discord  results.  To  any 
normal  eye  the  light  in  Claude's  pictures  is 
more  natural  than  in  the  productions  of  the 
plein  air  school.  He  reproduces  Nature's  har- 
mony, though  in  a  lower  key  ;  while  they,  with 
all  their  scientific  accuracy  of  observation,  give 
us  a  discord  unknown  to  her. 

Claude  has  been  reproached  for  his  inability 
to  depict  the  violent  aspects  of  nature.  It  is 
true  that  he  was  not  able  to  render  satisfactorily 
storms  and  darkness.  For  that  matter,  neither 


228  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

was  Raphael,  whose  efforts  to  portray  the  tragic 
are  essentially  failures.  But  this  limitation  of 
Raphael's  genius  does  not  prevent  his  being  ac- 
knowledged as  the  Prince  of  Painters,  and  it  is 
hard  to  perceive  why  a  different  rule  should  be 
applied  to  Claude.  He  does  supremely  well 
what  he  undertakes  to  do  ;  and  that  is  all  that 
can  be  demanded  of  any  artist.  You  might  as 
well  condemn  Raphael  because  he  could  not 
paint  like  Michelangelo,  or  Michelangelo  be- 
cause he  could  not  paint  like  Titian.  Every 
one  has  his  limitations,  and  the  question  is 
whether  he  achieves  a  high  degree  of  perfection 
within  those  limits. 

In  devoting  himself  to  the  smiling  aspects  of 
Nature  Claude  was  true  to  the  traditions  of  his 
Italian  home.  The  Italian  loves  light  and  ab- 
hors darkness.  The  dim,  shadowy  aisles  of  a 
Gothic  cathedral  have  no  charm  for  him.  He 
enjoys  buildings  in  which  the  noon's  whitest 
radiance  falls  upon  the  splendor  of  fresco  and 
gilding.  He  delights  in  days  when  the  air  is  of 
crystalline  brilliancy  and  when  every  object 
appears  most  clearly  defined.  He  may  be  sor- 
rowful, but  the  brooding  melancholy  ,of  the 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE 

North  has  no  hold  upon  him.  His  bright  na- 
ture turns  from  the  mournful  haze  that  some- 
times envelops  his  land  to  the  sun's  effulgence. 
He  sees  many  aspects  of  nature,  but  only  one 
charms  his  soul,  only  one  does  he  seek  to  per- 
petuate on  the  canvas.  At  least,  so  it  was  in  the 
days  of  the  Renaissance,  when  his  own  charac- 
ter was  suffered  to  develop  naturally,  unaffected 
by  those  influences  that  now  invade  him  from 
beyond  the  Alps.  Living  much  in  the  open  air, 
his  eyesight  was  generally  good,  so  that  on  the 
clear  days  that  he  loved  he  saw  distant  objects 
with  great  distinctness. 

Not  only  is  the  Italian's  sunny  nature  averse 
to  mists  and  dampness,  but  they  bring  to  him 
serious  physical  discomfort.  The  Hollander  in 
his  cosy  little  room  beside  a  cheerful  fire  likes  to 
look  out  on  fogs  and  clouds.  The  sight  of  them 
only  adds  to  his  satisfaction,  making  his  home 
seem  sweeter  and  more  attractive  by  contrast. 
From  his  immaculate  windows  with  their  well 
polished  panes  he  gazes  on  the  shifting  vapors, 
and  loves  to  study  the  play  of  light  through 
and  upon  them  and  the  ever  varied  atmospheric 
effects  which  they  produce.  But  with  the  Ital- 


230  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

ian  all  is  different.  His  great  bare  rooms  with 
their  lofty  vaulted  ceilings  are  rarely  heated 
save  by  the  sun.  When  the  day  is  bright  they 
are  beautiful  and  stately  beyond  all  other  dwell- 
ings ;  but  in  damp  weather  they  are  cheerless 
to  the  last  degree.  Pictures  of  mist  and  rain 
are  therefore  associated  in  the  Italian's  mind 
with  all  that  is  cold  and  chill  and  wretched. 
In  such  weather  there  may  be  beauty,  but  he  is 
too  uncomfortable  to  observe  it ;  and  the  ac- 
companying sensations  are  so  unpleasant  that 
he  does  not  wish  them  recalled  to  his  memory. 
Therefore,  in  the  painting  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance  you  must  not  look  for  storms  and 
darkness.  The  dampness  that  makes  such 
phenomena  possible  was  hateful  to  the  painter's 
sight.  Sunlight  alone  he  loves,  and  sun-bathed 
landscapes  are  all  that  he  cares  to  depict.  In 
the  Italian  mind  there  is  little  of  that  haziness, 
of  that  dreamy  vagueness  so  common  with  the 
Teuton.  What  he  sees  at  all  he  sees  clearly, 
and  so  it  pleases  him  to  portray  it.  Accordingly 
he  delights  to  paint  his  landscapes  only  as  they 
appear  in  sunny  weather,  and  especially  as  they 
appear  when  a  storm  has  cleared  the  atmosphere 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE 

and  when  its  crystalline  purity  interposes  no 
veil  between  him  and  the  object  of  his  regard. 
In  his  taste  for  landscape,  as  in  so  many 
other  things,  the  Renaissance  Italian  was  the 
heir  of  imperial  Rome.  To  what  extent  this 
was  unconscious,  a  manifestation  of  an  inherited 
disposition,  and  to  what  extent  it  was  due  to 
cultivation  at  a  time  when  almost  all  works  of 
literary  merit  were  in  the  Latin  tongue,  we  can- 
not  say.  But  certain  it  is  that  he  loved  pre- 
cisely those  views  that  would  have  pleased  the 
subjects  of  Trajan  or  Augustus.  The  ancients 
delighted  only  in  nature's  smiling  aspects. 
They  saw  nothing  to  attract  in  rugged  moun- 
tains or  barren  rocks.  Such  things  filled  them 
with  horror.  They  loved  broad  meadows  slop- 
ing to  an  azure  sea,  gentle  eminences  clothed 
in  verdure  and  bathed  in  sunlight,  seaports 
guarded  by  graceful  promontories  and  dotted 
with  islands  like  jewels  on  ocean's  bosom.  It 
was  such  prospects  that  they  celebrated  in  their 
poems  and  romances  ;  with  such  did  they 
decorate  their  walls.  The  sublimity  of  desolate 
mountain  fastnesses,  of  fathomless  gorges,  of 
storms  and  darkness  brooding  over  waters  that 


232  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

moan  and  shriek  in  fury  and  despair,  were  to 
them  unsympathetic  and  forbidding.  Lord 
Byron's  exultation  in  the  grandeur  of  the 
storm-swept  Alps  they  would  have  found  in- 
comprehensible. They  loved  mountains,  but 
only  when  their  desolation  was  concealed  by 
distance,  and  when,  blue  on  the  horizon's  verge, 
they  seemed  the  fitting  home  of  the  immortal 
gods.  They  knew  nothing  of  that  desire  to 
scale  them,  to  climb  their  riven  and  blasted 
sides  with  infinite  toil  and  no  little  danger,  of 
the  intoxication  of  standing  upon  their  dizzy 
summits,  that  thrills  our  breasts  to-day.  They 
knew  nothing  of  our  restless  aspirations  toward 
the  infinite.  They  thought  that  this  world  was 
all  in  all,  and  that  the  gods  dwelt  just  above 
their  heads  on  Ida  and  Olympus,  and  were 
content. 

The  man  of  the  Renaissance  knew  no  more  of 
the  universe  than  the  ancient  Roman,  and  he 
looked  at  Nature  with  much  the  same  eyes.  He 
loved  her  smiles  and  dreaded  her  frowns  in  the 
same  way,  and  was  equally  inclined  to  repre- 
sent only  her  pleasing  features.  It  was  they 
alone  on  which  he  could  look  with  satisfaction  ; 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE  233 

it  was  they  alone  that  he  desired  to  remember. 
Therefore  it  was  they  alone  that  he  willingly 
fixed  upon  the  canvas. 

Claude  is  reproached  with  the  poor  drawing 
of  his  figures.  The  reproach  is  just.  In  dealing 
with  the  human  form  he  was  hopelessly  in- 
competent. It  is  almost  inconceivable  that  one 
who  could  represent  inanimate  nature  with  such 
perfect  accuracy  should  have  failed  so  com- 
pletely in  his  figure  painting.  Nor  was  it  due 
to  a  want  of  application.  He  was  continually 
drawing  from  the  antique  and  from  life,  striving 
with  all  his  might  to  learn  the  secrets  of  the 
human  body,  yet  all  in  vain.  He  realized  his 
own  deficiencies,  and  used  to  say  that  he  sold 
his  landscapes  and  threw  in  the  figures.  When 
he  had  attained  such  eminence  as  to  admit  the 
hiring  of  assistants,  he  usually  employed  some 
one  to  put  the  figures  in  according  to  his  scheme. 

It  is  generally  said  that  Claude  derives  the 
basis  of  his  art  from  Titian  and  the  great  Vene- 
tians and  from  the  Bolognese.  That  may  be 
so,  but  I  fail  to  perceive  it.  Titian  and  his 
followers  are  in  some  aspects  more  modern 
than  Claude.  They  possess  in  only  moderate 


234  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

degree  his  sense  of  space  and  his  serenity. 
They  are  deeper  and  richer  in  color.  The 
Bolognese,  on  the  other  hand,  are  so  inferior  to 
Claude  in  artistic  worth  that  they  are  not  to  be 
mentioned  in  the  same  breath. 

To  find  Claude's  real  predecessors  we  must 
go  back  to  the  old  Umbrian  school,  especially 
to  Perugino,  to  Pinturicchio,  to  the  youthful 
Raphael  before  he  fell  under  the  spell  of  Michel- 
angelo. It  is  only  of  late  that  we  have  begun 
to  realize  how  great  were  these  men  as  land- 
scape painters.  They  relegated  their  landscapes 
to  the  background,  so  that  the  casual  observer 
neglected  them  for  the  figures.  As  they  were 
not  presentations  of  any  known  view,  it  was 
the  fashion  to  speak  of  them  slightingly  as 
"  conventional."  Now,  however,  we  perceive 
that  these  old  Umbrian  backgrounds  are  among 
the  glories  of  art,  often  far  more  precious  than 
the  saints  and  Madonnas  that  are  the  centre  of 
the  pictures.  These  scenes,  like  Claude's,  are 
ideal.  The  artist  has  not  copied  any  one  frag- 
ment of  nature.  He  has  composed  a  work  of 
the  imagination,  true  to  nature's  spirit,  but  his 
own  beautiful  creation.  And  there  is  the  same 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE  235 

sense  of  peace,  of  infinite  distance,  the  same 
exclusive  predilection  for  scenes  of  tranquil 
beauty,  the  same  unobtrusive  color,  the  same 
preference  for  form  and  line  as  means  of 
expression. 

We  do  not  know  that  Claude  ever  saw  these 
pictures,  far  less  that  he  consciously  studied 
them.  It  is  likely  that  the  resemblance  is  due 
entirely  to  the  fact  that  they  lived  in  similar 
environments,  in  constant  contemplation  of  the 
same  charming  scenes,  beneath  the  same  lumin- 
ous sky.  Certain  it  is  that  Claude  takes  up  the 
work  where  Perugino  and  Raphael  leave  it  off, 
and  carries  it  along  their  lines  to  an  ultimate 
perfection. 

It  must  be  noted  that  not  only  was  Claude  a 
great  painter,  but  he  was  a  great  etcher.  Only 
at  two  short  and  distant  periods  of  his  life  did 
he  take  up  the  needle  ;  and  for  want  of  practice 
his  work  in  that  line  is  very  unequal.  But  at 
his  best  it  is  very  beautiful,  remarkable  for  the 
clearness  and  delicacy  that  characterize  his 
drawings.  Some  of  his  skies  are  the  best  ever 
made  with  the  burin. 

Of  late  years  Claude's  fame  has  suffered  an 


236  RENAISSANCE  MASTERS 

eclipse.  On  the  Continent  the  methods  of  the 
Impressionists  are  the  precise  antithesis  of  his, 
and  they  and  all  their  followers  have  been  con- 
strained to  ridicule  him  and  to  cry  him  down. 
In  England,  Turner,  who  owed  him  so  great  a 
debt  and  who  sometimes  imitated  him  so 
closely,  would  suffer  no  rival  near  his  throne, 
and  insisted  upon  abuse  of  Claude  as  a  passport 
to  his  favor.  Claude's  pictures  have  all  the 
qualities  called  for  by  the  artistic  principles 
that  Ruskin  laid  down,  the  accuracy  of  detail, 
the  idealism,  the  ethical  quality  ;  and  one  would 
have  expected  him  to  be  enthusiastic  in  their 
praise.  But  such  was  his  devotion  to  Turner 
that  he  voiced  all  the  jealousy  and  prejudice  of 
the  master,  and  his  amazing  eloquence  is  con- 
tinually used  in  abuse  of  Claude.  Rarely  does 
he  bestow  a  word  of  praise  on  Turner  without 
flinging  a  stone  at  his  great  predecessor. 

If,  as  many  critics  believe,  composition  is  the 
highest  faculty  of  the  artist,  Claude  must  be 
ranked  supremely  high.  His  pictures  hang 
together  in  a  faultless  way.  Everything  har- 
monizes, and  the  wealth  of  detail,  instead  of 
distracting  attention,  unites  to  produce  the 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE  237 

effect  intended.  Raphael  is  called  the  Prince 
of  Painters,  largely  because  his  composition  is 
so  rarely  at  fault.  The  same  rule  should  be 
applied  to  Claude.  He  is  one  of  the  great 
composers.  And  now,  as  the  influence  of  Rus- 
kin  wanes  and  the  world  is  growing  weary  of 
the  aberrations  of  the  Impressionists,  it  is  turn- 
ing back  to  Claude,  where  he  still  sits  enthroned 
in  an  enchanted  land  of  his  own  creation,  a  land 
where  all  is  harmony,  where  peace  and  joy 
reign  undisturbed,  and  sin  and  sorrow  dare  not 
enter. 


INDEX. 


ART: 

Renaissance  and  Greek  compared,  6 

Individuality  of  Renaissance,  7 

Its  variety,  8 

Its  preference  for  painting,  9 

Its  sudden  end,  13 

Art  as  decoration  and  illustration,  28 

Venetian  color,  108 

Color  as  an  element  of  beauty,  no 

Venetian  art  little  affected  by  classic,  118,  I2O 

Venetian  art  decorative,  120 

The  nude,  125 

Florentine  and  Venetian,  147 

Color  in  fresco,  147 

BOTTICELLI  : 

Diversity  of  opinion,  159 
Vicissitudes  of  fame,  160 
Painter  of  the  nerves,  161 
His  ideal  of  beauty,  162,  163 
His  historical  importance,  162 
His  ineffectual  striving  after  classic  ideals,  163,  175 
"  Birth  of  Venus,"  164,  173,  178 
"Spring,"  164,  172,  173,  178 
Compared  with  Raphael,  164,  160 
His  illustrations  of  Dante,  165 
239 


240  INDEX 

BOTTICELLI  : — Continued. 

His  defective  anatomy,  166 

"  Mars  and  Venus,"  167 

"Calumny,"  167 

His  mastery  of  lineal  decoration,  167 

His  color,  167 

His  sense  of  motion,  168 

The  painter  of  the  breeze,  169 

His  draperies,  170 

His  weakness  in  large  compositions,  170 

Sistine  frescoes,  170 

His  limitations,  171 

His  flowers,  171 

"Crowned  Madonna,"  172,  176,  178 

His  fondness  for  allegory,  172 

44  Pallas  and  the  Centaur,'*  172 

Most  feminine  of  painters,  172 

His  suggestiveness,  174 

Painter  of  woman's  soul,  175 

Compared  with  Leonardo,  175 

His  fancy,  175 

"  Nativity,"  176,  179 

His  poetry,  177 

His  affectations,  177 

His  charm,  178 

His  influence  on  our  time,  178 

CORREGGIO  : 

His  debt  to  Leonardo,  94,  146,  147 
"  Jupiter  and  Antiope,"  148,  94 
His  paganism,  131 
His  joyousness,  132 
44  The  Fates,"  133 

Compared  with  Raphael,  133,  139,  148,  156,  157 
Compared  with  Michelangelo,  133,  139,  141,  145,  148, 
151.  I55>  157 


INDEX  24T 


CORREGGIO  : — Continued. 
A  lyric  poet,  133 
His  children  and  boys,  134 
His  types,  134 

His  expression  of  sadness,  135 
"Ecce  Homo,"  135 
His  slight  opportunities,  135 
His  isolation,  137 

Compared  with  Leonardo,  139,  146,  147,  148,  156,  158 
Is  he  immoral?  139 
"The  Day,"  140 
His  religious  feeling,  143 
"  Madonna  with  St.  George,"  144,  145 
"  Mystic  Marriage  of  St.  Catherine,"  144 
"  Danae,"  144 
"  Jupiter  and  lo,"  144 
"Assumption,"  151,  145 
"Ascension,"  145,  146 
A  painter  purely  of  the  imagination,  145 
Painted  no  portraits,  145 
His  chiaroscuro,  146 
His  atmosphere,  146 
His  color,  147 

Compared  with  Titian,  148,  154,  157 
"Sleeping  Antiope,"  148 
His  love  for  foreshortening,  151 
His  handling  of  masses,  151 
Toschi's  engravings,  153 
"Reading  Magdalen,"  154 
His  sense  of  female  beauty,  154 
His  effect  on  the  decline  of  art,  155 
Most  emotional,  155 
His  smiles,  156 
His  want  of  depth,  156 
His  qualities,  157 


242  INDEX 

LEONARDO  DA  VINCI  : 

His  study  of  countenance,  7 

His  versatility,  71 

His  scientific  discoveries  and  inventions,  71 

His  personal  appearance  and  accomplishments,  75 

Questions  of  authenticity,  76 

Academy  cartoon,  76,  89,  101 

"  Mona  Lisa,"  85,  76,  94,  101 

"  Last  Supper,"  79,  76,  82,  93,  in 

Want  of  fecundity,  77,  101,  38 

First  modern  painter,  77 

Invented  grandeur  of  style,  79 

Mastery  of  facial  expression,  81 

"  Battle  of  the  Standard,"  82,  93 

Compared  with  Raphael,  83,  89,  100 

Compared  with  Michelangelo,  83,  89,  90,  IOO 

Preference  for  subtle  types,  85 

His  appreciation  of  the  womanly,  88 

Not  a  lover  of  physical  beauty,  88 

His  smile,  85,  150 

"  Madonna  of  the  Rocks,"  89 

"  Vi£rge  aux  Rochers,"  89 

"St.  Anne,"  89 

His  spirituality,  89 

Anatomical  skill,  90 

Indifference  to  the  nude,  90 

"  Leda,"  90 

The  painter  of  the  soul,  91 

Lovableness  of  his  women,  91 

His  chiaroscuro,  93 

Revolutionized  art,  77,  94 

Devotion  to  nature,  95 

Indifference  to  classic  art,  95 

Not  a  realist,  96 

His  fondness  for  plants  and  animals,  97 

His  fondness  for  hair,  97 


INDEX  243 

LEONARDO  DA  VINCI  : — Continued. 
Interest  in  all  things  curious,  98 
His  writing  from  right  to  left,  99 
"  St.  John,"  99 
"Bacchus,"  100 

Most  thoughtful  of  painters,  100 
His  portrait,  102 

Compared  with  Corregio,  139,  146,  147,  148,  156,  158 
His  frescoes,  150 
Compared  with  Botticelli,  175 

MICHELANGELO  : 

Compared  with  Raphael,  42,  58,  22,  23,  24,  39,  40, 47,  57, 

63,64 

His  preference  for  the  Old  Testament,  43 
"  Christ "  of  Santa  Maria  sopra  Minerva,  43,  44 
"  Pieta,"  44,  45 

41  Holy  Family  of  the  Tribune,"  44,  46 
Not  Christian  in  spirit  of  his  art,  44 
"  Last  Judgment,"  45,  52,  62,  68,  151 
"  Descent  from  the  Cross,"  46 
His  preference  for  the  masculine,  46 
"  Eve,"  47,  48 
"Adam,"  48,  81 
"  Night,"  48,  49 
"  Dawn,"  48,  49 

Medicean  Tombs,  48,  62,  63,  68,  141 
His  women  not  womanly,  47 
Nor  lovable,  49 
His  feeling  for  male  beauty,  49 
"  Captives,"  50 
His  terribilitb,  50 
"  Moses,"  51,  63,  68,  141 
"David,"  51,  141 
Compared  with  Greeks,  52 
The  vitality  of  his  creations,  53 


244  INDEX 

MICHELANGELO  : — Continued. 
His  power,  54 

Sistine  ceiling,  47,  55,  62,  68 
His  mastery  of  the  nude,  56 
Essentially  a  sculptor,  57 
His  absorption  in  man,  59 
His  fondness  for  physical  vigor,  60 
« '  Battle  of  Pisa,"  61,  67,  83 
His  personality,  63 
His  aversion  to  assistants,  64 
Decline  following  his  death,  65 
His  own  decline,  67 
Pauline  Chapel,  69 
St.  Peter's  Dome,  69 
Painter,  sculptor,  architect,  69 
His  color,  149 

Compared  with  Correggio,  133,  139,  141,  145,  148,  151, 
155,  157 

MIDDLE  AGES  : 

Their  longing  for  the  unattainable,  4 
Their  conception  of  love,  5 
Their  absorption  of  the  individual,  9 
Their  conception  of  religion,  141 
Mediaeval  paganism,  175 

RAPHAEL : 

His  unvarying  good  fortune,  18 

Reconciled  the  mediaeval  and  the  classic,  19 

His  purity,  22 

Compared  with  Michelangelo,  42,  58,  22,  23,  24,  39,  40, 

47,  57 

His  humanity,  23 
Fixed  our  standard  of  beauty,  25 
"Sistine  Madonna,"  25 
'*  Madonna  of  the  Chair,"  25 


INDEX  245 

RAPHAEL  : — Continued. 

"  Burning  of  the  Borgo,"  25 

"  St.  Michael,"  25,  37 

4 'Parnassus,"  26,  164 

Compared  with  Leonardo,  26,  39,  41 

Compared  with  Titian,  26,  41,  112,  123 

His  realism  and  idealism,  26 

His  portraits,  27 

As  illustrator,  29 

His  feeling  for  space,  32 

His  color,  31,  148 

His  composition,  31,  58 

41  School  of  Athens,"  33,  36,  41,  8l 

Compared  with  Claude  Lorraine,  31,  33 

44  Apollo  and  Marsyas,"  34 

His  receptiveness,  34 

4<  Galatea,"  36,  37,  164 

Assistance  received  from  his  pupils,  36 

44  Holy  Family  of  Francis  I.,"  37 

44  Battle  of  Constantine,"  37,  41,  83 

44  Cupid,  and  Psyche,"  37 

His  fecundity,  38 

His  imaginative  power,  39 

4 '  Expulsion  of  Heliodorus,"  41 

4 "Entombment,"  41 

Variety  of  his  compositions,  41 

His  preference  for  the  New  Testament,  43 

Loggie  pictures,  43 

"Transfiguration,"  112 

44  Miracle  of  Bolsena,"  148 

Compared  with  Correggio,  133,  139,  148,  156,  i$7 

Compared  with  Botticelli,  164,  160 

RENAISSANCE  : 

Conflict  between  classic  and  mediaeval,  I 
A  period  of  disintegration  and  contrasts,  IO 


246  INDEX 

RENAISSANCE  : — Continued. 
Its  lawlessness,  60 
Its  general  culture,  137 

TITIAN  : 

His  paganism,  104 

His  breadth  and  sanity,  105 

"  Sleeping  Antiope,"  149,  107 

"  Venus  and  Nymphs  Equipping  Cupid,"  107 

His  mastery  of  his  craft,  107 

His  color,  108 

"  Assumption,"  112,  109,  126 

"  Entombment,"  109,  126 

His  religious  pictures,  113 

"  Tribute  Money,"  in. 

His  conception  of  Christ,  in 

"  Pesaro  Madonna,"  113 

"  Presentation  of  the  Virgin,"  113 

His  portraits,  115 

His  humanity,  117 

Painter  of  the  flesh,  117,  124 

His  debt  to  Giorgione,  119 

"  Sacred  and  Profane  Love,"  122,  I2O 

"  Three  Ages  of  Man,"  120,  122. 

As  an  illustrator,  122 

"  Bacchus  and  Ariadne,"  123 

"  Worship  of  Venus,"  123 

His  composition,  123 

Compared  with  Raphael,  112,  123,  126 

His  draughtsmanship,  123 

Compared  with  Michelangelo,  123 

"  St.  Peter  Martyr,"  124 

"Danae,"  124 

His  preference  for  repose,  124. 

His  anatomy,  124 

His  variety,  126 


INDEX  247 

TITIAN  : — Continued. 

"  Mocking  of  Christ,"  126 

His  slow  development,  127 

His  feeling  for  nature,  127 

His  serenity,  129 

His  frescoes,  147 

Compared  with  Correggio,  148,  154,  157 

RUBENS  : 

A  classicist,  181 

"Tiberius  and  Agrippina,"  183 

Represents  ideas  of  his  own  time,  183 

Allegories,  185 

His  rank  as  an  artist,  186 

His  sense  of  vitality,  187,  208 

His  color,  189 

"Judgment  of  Paris,"  190 

"  Perseus  and  Andromeda,"  190 

His  flesh  painting,  192 

His  picture  factory,  192 

His  fecundity,  195 

His  youthful  style,  196 

"  Descent  from  the  Cross,"  197,  201 

Helen  Fourment,  197 

"Andromeda,"  198 

"Venus  of  the  Prado,"  198 

"  Shepherd  and  Shepherdess,"  198 

"La  Pelisse,"  198 

His  sensuousness,  198 

Morality  of  his  works,  199 

His  religious  paintings,  200 

"  Theodosius  Refused  Admittance  to  the  Church,"  202 

"  Christ  and  the  Four  Penitents,"  202 

Fondness  for  painting  drunkenness,  202 

His  landscapes,  203 

His  portraits,  204 


248  INDEX 

"  Le  Chapeau  de  Foil,"  204 

His  fondness  for  large  compositions,  205,  207 

"  Last  Judgment,"  205 

"  Fall  of  the  Damned,"  205 

"  Fall  of  the  Rebel  Angels,"  205 

"  Boar  Hunt,"  206 

"Lion  Hunt,"  206 

His  children,  206 

"  Christ  and  St.  John,"  206 

*'  Rape  of  the  Sabines,"  207 

"  Massacre  of  the  Innocents,"  207 

"  Garden  of  Love,"  207 

"Kermesse,"  207 

Compared  with  Michelangelo,  207 

His  originality,  208 

His  successors,  209 

His  breadth,  210 

SUPPLEMENTARY  INDEX. 

CLAUDE  LORRAINE: 

Real  and  ideal,  211 

His  drawings,  214 

His  sense  of  beauty,  217 

His  use  of  architecture,  219 

His  serenity,  220. 

His  sense  of  distance,  221 

His  high  average,  224 

Painting  the  sun,  225 

Light  and  atmosphere,  225 

Inability  to  represent  storms,  227 

Influence  of  Italian  climate,  228 

His  predecessors,  233 

His  etchings,  235 

Turner  and  Ruskin,  235 

His  composition,  236 


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RETUP 


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RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM 

LOAN  DEPT. 


YB   17663 


